Einstein's Letter to his daughter + My Comment

Now I have become love

My Comment:  This letter of Einstein to his daughter Lieserl below is gorgeous. All should read it and take it to heart. Yesterday in my solitude before I went to bed I, the agnostic, asked God for a sign; something I could take to heart and change my life to find what I am looking for; a powerful force bigger than myself to explain the purpose of it all and to erase hate wherever it exists even in myself. This morning a writer friend of mine sent a letter from Albert Einstein to his daughter to be opened after his death. It was the first thing I saw this morning. My only reaction was a short "wow!" It should, be sent far and wide to everyone you know to find a remedy for our world in flames cannibalizing itself instead of Oppenheimer's oft quoted phrase upon the power of the nuclear bomb he helped build -- "Now," he said, quoting from the Bagavad Gita "I have become death destroyer of worlds." Einstein, I think, would say: Now I have become love the healer of worlds and the perpetuator of life!

In the late 1980s, Lieserl, the daughter of the famous genius, donated 1,400 letters, written by Einstein, to the Hebrew University, with orders not to publish their contents until two decades after his death. This is one of them, for Lieserl Einstein.
…”When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.
I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.
There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.
This universal force is LOVE.
When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.
Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.
Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others.
Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals.
For love we live and die.
Love is God and God is Love.
This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.
To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation.
If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.
After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…
If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.
Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.
However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.
When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.
I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer! “.
Your father Albert Einstein

Elizabeth Warren Releases DNA Test Results Re: Indian Ancestry Inbox x

Mazel tov!!   DNA proves that Elizabeth Warren's heredity of Native American is what she says it is.  Trump's ancestry is 100% %$#%ole!.  I tried the best I could to camouflage but as Eric Holder has said:

‘When they go low, we kick them. That’s what this new Democratic Party is about.'

Democrats must meet fire with fire.  No more mealy mouth Democratic say nothings!  DEMOCRATS MUST HIT THEM BACK AND MUST SAY THE HUMANITARIAN THINGS WE ARE ABOUT AND FROM WHICH EVERYONE BENEFITS NOT JUST THE 2% WEALTHIEST!!!

RESIST:  as if your life depends upon it because it does!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-dna-test-results_us_5bc4648ce4b040bb4e840fd6

Blue Wave Rising -- a Song

Please listen to this great hit and then forward to whomever you choose!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVOycHHr270

BREAKING: Trump fraud bombshel

Dear friends, He put children into cages, pulled out of the Paris climate deal, and could launch a nuclear war any day with the tip of his finger. But the worst thing about Trump might be the giant web of corruption that’s fueled his power. A bombshell New York Times report has just exposed how his family built an empire off tax dodging and outright fraud -- and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Investigations in the UK, Netherlands, and Canada have brought to light other potentially massive scandals involving Trump, his family, or his organisations. But prosecutors aren’t moving, possibly afraid of the furious response from Trump himself. If they did, their findings could fuel the US investigations, and give Congress evidence of Trump’s widespread corruption. But in order to move, these prosecutors need an unprecedented public push. Sign now, and once we reach 1 million, we will make them famous in their respective countries with ad campaigns, news stories and actions outside their offices. Sign now This is big. Mounting evidence indicates hundreds of millions in crazy money laundering schemes and tax fraud that could unravel Trump’s whole business empire. An investigation of Trump's ties to Russia is underway in the US, led by prosecutor Robert Mueller. He's known to be tough and independent, but faces a number of political challenges -- that's why evidence uncovered internationally could be the deciding factor of Trump’s fate.  The Avaaz community is the only global movement big, flexible, and tenacious enough to take the investigations against Donald Trump across the globe -- and make sure that no one, not even the US President, is above the law. Sign now This is not going to be an easy fight for us as citizens or for our governments. But if anyone can make it happen, it’s this community. Our movement picks hard things… and wins. In a time when many of our democratic institutions are under threat, let’s stand up to one of the biggest bullies of them all before it’s too late. He pulled out of the Paris climate deal, and could launch a nuclear war any day -- but the worst thing about Trump might be his web of corruption. Now we have a way to expose it: get countries across the world to investigate his shady dealings, and give the US Congress evidence of his fraud and tax evasion. Nobody knows about this possibility -- it’s on us to make it famous and get prosecutors to act! With hope and fierce determination, Emma, Nell, Danny, Meetali, Alex, Marigona, Andrew, Olivia, Anneke with the entire Avaaz team More information: Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father (NYTimes) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html What’s next for Mueller’s investigation after Manafort’s conviction? (Vox) https://www.vox.com/2018/8/22/17693844/mueller-trump-russia-manafort 6 Takeaways From Michael Cohen’s Guilty Plea (The New York Times) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/nyregion/michael-cohen-guilty-plea-trump-takeaways.html Trump: 'I have the absolute right to pardon myself' (CNN) https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/donald-trump-pardon-tweet/index.html Here's everyone who has been charged and convicted in Mueller's Russia probe so far (Business Insider) https://www.businessinsider.es/who-has-been-charged-in-russia-investigation-mueller-trump-2017-12?r=...

I Wonder

I always wonder what makes something the way it is.  I always wondered how a bird flies or how bees pollinate flowers and how such a tiny thing makes such delicious gallons of sweet honey.  I wonder about the earth and how it began and how one can count trillions of stars above.  I wonder why it rains, why it snows and how those flowers frozen in winter's deep return in the spring from it in beauty.  I wonder how the oceans with waters so deep formed and how fish can only breathe under water.  I wonder about the cycle of life and why every living thing seems so entwined one with the other.   I wonder about viruses and bacteria that can fell a man or paralyze limbs perverting their form making life life-long difficult.  I wonder about death and why humans suffer loss of those they love but many other mammals do not love or understand loss.  These are things about which I wonder.

I also wonder about man; why some are so violent; why some are so quick to fight and why others want to walk in another’s shoes to think how they feel walking in them; why some can empathize with the plight of another whose arc of the universe did not bend toward justice.  Why some can feel the plight of the downtrodden and want to help but others want to take away food from the hungry, take away money from the poor but give to those who are steeped in wealth.  I wonder about these things.  I wonder why a man who cares begets another who does not.  I wonder how extreme love of punishment sadistically allows the strong to punish the weak often by depraved means.  I wonder why a man turns away from suffering and does nothing while another walks toward it and cannot do enough.

What prods a man to pull the trigger on another man?  What allows him to do that? A Saudi who wrote for the Washington Post was killed by other Saudis in a foreign land this week and then took a chainsaw to that man's limbs and cut them off.  The man’s sin -- criticizing a head of state by writing newspaper articles.  Did that head of state whose order was behind the killing think he was perfect and eschewed criticism to the point of murdering a fellow human being or was he really afraid of that criticism?  It was not enough that they killed the journalist but they also had to dismember him committing mayhem in the process.  I do not understand these things; I do not understand why some men can kill anything that moves and others can kill nothing even if it sits motionless.

I wonder how a man who allegedly attempts rape in a drunken state is believed that he did not do this thing but the voice of the woman to whom it was done is cast aside even though she was 100% sure it was he.  I wonder why if there were more of those who could attest to the man's drunkenness that they were not allowed to speak at the behest of a White House which ordered a limited investigation.  I wonder if that robed man who is alleged to have committed that heinous act was drunk with regularity, attested to by those who witnessed him many times in a drunken state. I wonder how he looks with satisfaction at his robed image in a morning mirror and then sits with pride to judge other men.    

I wonder why a nation born of immigrants develops policies in extremis to keep other immigrants whose skin is brown and who face danger in their own lands out of this one. Worse that nation separates children from their parents -- some forever.  I wonder why a president loves dictators more than he does democracies.  I wonder why a president lies so constantly that truth empties into the swamp he was supposed to drain. I wonder more why those who know he lies do not care. I wonder what was done to a president at so young an age that he can grow up saturated in corruption, mean, cruel and without empathy for anyone but himself.  I wonder why he laughs at the women whom he has admittedly abused and does so at their expense as he brags about how power can gain him these privileges because women let him do anything doncha know. This is our president. Shame on you, America, that you saw fit to give this great nation the curse of Trump.

I wonder about all of these things and wonder if there are answers to anything.

Local GOP Official Wants to Send Native American House Candidate ‘Back to the Reservation’ -- BUT SHE IS GOING TO WIN!

REPUBLICANS REALLY A MINORITY NATIONAL PARTY CAN WIN ONLY BY RACIST INVECTIVE, GERRYMANDERING OR CHEATING

AND A RECIPIENT OF THAT, SHARICE DAVIDS, IS NO EXCEPTION.  IF YOU CAN A CONTRIBUTION

TO HER CAMPAIGN  https://www.shariceforcongress.com/home WOULD BE WORTHWHILE (See story below)

By Ed Kilgore  Daily Intelligencer

Sharice Davids is likely going to Congress, not “back to the reservation.” Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Normally the social media ravings of local party activists don’t merit any serious attention; these are the ground troops of American politics, who often get carried away. But occasionally you run across such a classic of evil invective that it just has to be shared. It comes from Kansas, where Republicans are used to being embarrassed by extremists like their gubernatorial nominee Kris Kobach. And the target is Democratic congressional candidate Sharice Davids, who is in a close race with incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder. The Kansas City Star has the story:

A local Kansas GOP official lashed out at Democratic congressional candidate Sharice Davids on social media earlier this week, saying “your radical socialist kick boxing lesbian will be sent back packing to the reservation.”
The Facebook message was written by Republican precinct committeeman Michael Kalny of Shawnee and sent to Anne Pritchett, president of the Johnson County Democratic Women’s north chapter.

Davids is indeed a lesbian, and a former professional mixed-martial-arts fighter. She’s also Native American. She is not, however, any sort of “radical socialist”; in the Democratic primary for this House race, she defeated the self-identified progressive backed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And she grew up in the suburban 3rd congressional district of Kansas, not “the reservation.” But Kalny was clearly on a roll and wasn’t going to let facts get in his way:

“Little Ms. Pritchett- you and your comrades stealth attack on Yoder is going to blow up in your leftist face,” Kalny wrote. “The REAL REPUBLICANS will remember what the scum DEMONRATS tried to do to Kavanaugh in November….
Roughly 50 exclamation points followed the end of the message.

Kalny’s prophecy of what will happen on November 6 is not looking terribly prescient, either. A couple of weeks ago the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee cancelled a million bucks in planned advertising on Yoder’s behalf. It wasn’t because they thought he was a lock; The Cook Political Report rates the race as “Lean D.” You know, D as in “DEMONRATS” THAT IS DEMOCRATS!

We are not going back

Senator Collins of Maine is a phony! I loathe her now!!! Never did but now I do. Yep, they say don't get mad just vote. Okay fine I was going to vote anyway no matter what so how about if I vote AND be FURIOUS at the same time. I'm mad very mad and I admit it willingly just like the antiVietnam protestors of the late 60's. They were right. 30,000 men died for NOTHING. That should make everyone scream and now black people who have suffered for hundreds of years in the land of the free, had to endure all kinds of indignities, lynchings, Jim Crow and a thousand more insulting things face the prospect of all they have gained and all we have gained together going down the voter suppression toilet? Should they be MAD? YES they should be mad darn straight they should be mad.

When Malcolm X said "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us" he was right 100% right. Who of us would have endured a slave's life grueling work in all the heat and cold for 12 hours a day in the most grotesque conditions only to face other indignities in the Jim Crow south and now again over the red state and presidential psychopathology. Am I mad? You bet I'm mad!

Gay people had to hide their deepest feelings for fear someone would kill them for it and families reject them finally, finally, finally, get recognized as having civil rights after beating down the doors of justice to claim what should be rightfully theirs -- whom to LOVE? Are you kidding me? Let Justice Kavanaugh put the genie back in the bottle? I DON'T THINK SO!

NO! We are not going back -- EVER!!!

RESIST and VOTE Democrat November 6. 2018

Don’t Confirm Brett Kavanaugh, Says Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens

“His performance in the hearings changed my mind.”

By Paul Blumenthal

Bill Clark via Getty Images Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said he opposes Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. 

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday that he does not support the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh “had the qualifications” to be a Supreme Court justice but his behavior at a hearing last week ― where he defended himself against allegations of sexual assault by blaming Democrats seeking “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” ― was inappropriate and disqualifying, Stevens said.

“His performance in the hearings changed my mind,” Stevens said, the Palm Beach Post first reported. “The senators should pay attention to this.”

Former justices do not normally comment on pending Supreme Court nominations, and Stevens is the only living former justice to comment on whether Kavanaugh should be confirmed. Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter and Anthony Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh was nominated to replace, have not said anything about the nomination process. 

Few figures could be more dissimilar from each other than Stevens and Kavanaugh. Stevens was nominated by Republican President Gerald Ford in 1975. He went on to become the most liberal member of a minority bloc on the Supreme Court. He retired in 2010 and was replaced by Justice Elena Kagan.

Kavanaugh has been a partisan political operative, working with Republicans to investigate President Bill Clinton and helping George W. Bush win the Bush v. Gore court case in 2000 before being nominated to a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Stevens dissented in Bush v. Gore.) He was chosen to fill Kennedy’s seat because conservatives are assured that he will be a reliable conservative vote, unlike Stevens (or Souter).

Stevens also noted on Thursday that the partisan political influence over the high court was “worse” than ever. 

“I’ve never been a political person,” he added.

Say goodbye say hello

Republicans are doing anything they can to get Brett Kavanaugh, a sexual/alcohol abuser and misogynist.

The FBI report is in.   I knew that last night.  It will be inconclusive.  McConnell knows he has the votes.

 

They will move it out of committee onto the floor on the weekend.  Murskowski will fold, Collins will fold and so will Jeff Flake and two Democrats from conservative states Heitkamp and Manchen although as of this writing Heitkamp is a "NO."  They will have the votes and Kavanaugh will be on the Court.

Say goodbye to legal abortions that save lives and welcome to the back alley abortion where women die of toxemia; say goodbye to gay marriage and gay rights, rights for persons of color and Hispanics or any kind of affirmative action, in general; say goodbye to your lakes, rivers and streams loaded with toxic chemicals and pollutants a great deal for the petroleum industry and chemical companies.  Say good bye to union rights; say goodbye to limiting billions in bought legislatures, say goodbye to health insurance and welcome back preexisting conditions for which insurance companies will deny you insurance; say goodbye to Medicare, Social Security and more; say goodbye to women's rights and a return to the Mad Men days of the 1950's where women are treated like pond scum and marital rape is legal; Say hello to permanent climate change, ice caps melting and oceans rising; the list goes on and on and on.

Say hello to more voter suppression, say hello to more gerrymandering, say hello to more unjust violence against black men, more black men in private prisons that are already busting from overpopulation and more violence against gays which is already happening.  Say hello to a president who will be granted immense power,  is guilty of many many financial crimes the size of Everest and is guilty of collusion with a hostile power Russia.  Start welcoming Russia's Putin into your homes and maybe even Kim Jong Un with whom Trump said he was in love. 

Say hello to an America where the 2% wealthiest have it all but want more and the rest of us get nothing; say hello to a congress and presidency that is now riddled with horrific corruption and will remain that way because Kavanaugh will provide the 5th SCOTUS vote that will say a president cannot be indicted so there will, in fact, if the Congress remains Republican, a presidency imbued with unbridled power as Republicans capture the third branch of our government, the Supreme Court. Trump will be able to do anything even shoot someone in Times Square and not answer for it.  Say hello to a president who is a financial and Constitutional alleged criminal and allegedly guilty of treason against his own country.  SCOTUS soon will make it illegal to take a federal case into state court allowing for unlimited pardon power and will obliterate the 14th Amendment.  All Trump's children allegedly guilty of so much will get away with it all as he will.  There will soon be many more hair pulling rights fought for so dearly that will end. 

SCOTUS was our court of civil civil rights protection and its last resort.  Now so called "conservatives" will take cases to lower courts and lose just so they can take it to the Supreme Court and win.

I don't know about you but that is a nation in which I do not want to live so where is that window from which I would like to jump.

IF YOU DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRATIC NOVEMBER 6, 2018 THIS WILL NOT BE AN AMERICA YOU KNEW AND I SUSPECT IN WHICH MOST OF YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO LIVE.

YOUR LIFE DOES DEPEND ON IT SO VOTE DEMOCRATIC NOVEMBER 6, 2018 AND RESIST!

Trump, Russia and Hate

I wondered if anyone saw a fabulous "On Assignment" with Richard Engel. He talks about definite ties between Russia/Putin AND Trump. It gives a little history back to the good old anti-Communist days of Ronald Reagan. You know something is wrong with a progressive if those days begin to look good to me. 

It is CHILLING that the American Rightwingnut Christians extremists across the nation see no problem with a US tied to Russia. They rather like it ESPECIALLY at gun shows galore and most especially Russia's attack on LGBTs. 

Attacks on LGBT human beings are normal in Russia as were attacks on Jews during the era of pogroms the very reason my grandparents got out and came here. They never knew when they would be attacked. Same thing with gays. More worrisome is attacks here are up. Thank you Mr. Trump for your most humane influence (I JEST) on American culture. Nothing but the very best haters. 

It is time to unite against this cancerous curse of Trump that has invaded our nation. I KNOW we are more than Trumpian Republicans; I know we are better than Trumpian Republicans and I know we must loudly and strongly say so! RESIST!

Chad Ludington’s Statement on Kavanaugh’s Drinking and Senate Testimony

 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/us/politics/chad-ludington-statement-brett-kavanaugh.html

Chad Ludington, a Yale classmate of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s who said he often drank with him, issued a statement on Sunday saying the Supreme Court nominee was not truthful about his drinking in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

Here is the full text of the statement:

I have been contacted by numerous reporters about Brett Kavanaugh and have not wanted to say anything because I had nothing to contribute about what kind of justice he would be. I knew Brett at Yale because I was a classmate and a varsity basketball player and Brett enjoyed socializing with athletes. Indeed, athletes formed the core of Brett’s social circle.

In recent days I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale. When I watched Brett and his wife being interviewed on Fox News on Monday, and when I watched Brett deliver his testimony under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, I cringed. For the fact is, at Yale, and I can speak to no other times, Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker. I know, because, especially in our first two years of college, I often drank with him. On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer. When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.

I do not believe that the heavy drinking or even loutish behavior of an 18- or even 21-year-old should condemn a person for the rest of his life. I would be a hypocrite to think so. However, I have direct and repeated knowledge about his drinking and his disposition while drunk. And I do believe that Brett’s actions as a 53-year-old federal judge matter. If he lied about his past actions on national television, and more especially while speaking under oath in front of the United States Senate, I believe those lies should have consequences. It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges.

I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking, and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth.

I felt it was my civic duty to tell of my experience while drinking with Brett, and I offer this statement to the press. I have no desire to speak further publicly, and nothing more to say to the press at this time. I will, however, take my information to the F.B.I.

I hope it is not too late

 

 

 

 That is EXACTLY right.   Kavanaugh is a beast if he thought it was so smart to put that in his yearbook for all time. Are we supposed to say HA HA?  NO, I say I think I want to throw up at the thought of putting this sickening slime on the most powerful prestigious court of intellect and wisdom in the now so called "free world." How did we sink so low? I place the blame everywhere in an anything goes culture! The blame as I have thought for a long time must be placed in many parts of our culture.

I loved the late Sixties throwing off the stagnant, hypocrisy of the Fifties.  I thought the late Sixties to be an era that meant a humanitarian sea change for the poor, the sick, the elderly, the sad and the dispossessed bestowing those rights that had been given to everyone else but held back from particular others whose skin was a different color or whose orientation was different from the majority.

I thought the Sixties meant love and not hate. I thought it meant instead of killing human beings we would help them out of poverty and war. The only thing our sad excuse for a president that was used by him and now his SCOTUS choice, Kavanaugh, was unbridled, lewd, licentious and lascivious, talk and behavior that said if it feels good do it no matter who it hurts. NO, to me the Sixties meant the freedom to conduct one's physical life without fear of physical harm, shame or guilt that lead to suicide. It meant a release of the bonds of social servitude.

As usual our species took it to the heights of Everest allowing many to hurt especially weaker women and weaker people anyway they, the privileged white few men, wanted. The metamorphosis of the Sixties did not mean that to me. I never thought about the political right with presidential support morphing it into a permanent culture of hate.

What have we become as a nation? This administration has ushered in the unbridled debauchery of Rome at its worst -- the barbarians at the gate. I blame myself too for thinking there would be finally in this nation a humanitarian example to the world and not begin the potential destruction of a nation. I did not mean this to be so. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. . After the barbarity of Trump we must right a host of wrongs including those to our planet.  I hope it is not too late!

"Jane Fonda in Five Acts"-- Life on her own terms

This is a documentary about the life of Jane Fonda, daughter of film star, Henry Fonda, whom I knew well from his movies of previous eras.  I grew up knowing both of them in their professional roles.  This is an excellent documentary of Jane, who grew up a shy lonely child enduring her mother's suicide and her father's coldness morphing into a fulfilled woman becoming an activist for humanitarian causes. It spoke to me.  Later in life she sees herself not defined by the men she was with or to whom she was married but by her own personal measure and by her own deeds. 

We see and listen to this documentary told by Jane as she progresses into the various phases of her life looking at her life through the lens of not only the three different men she wed and but also in her early years through the strained almost sterile relationship she experienced with a father who could act in film but was unemotional and uncommunicative in life.  This documentary is the opposite of that. 

It is a highly emotive documentary reflecting the pain in her early years because of a father she thought did not love her and the suicide of a broken mentally ill mother whom she never got to know.  Through a child's immature eyes one could see why she thought herself deficient in some way even physically unattractive as her father kept chastising her for being overweight.  She was in reality thin and later bulimically very thin but still incapable of not only receiving love from either parent but loving herself.  Later, finally, on her own in the final scenes she escapes being defined by the men she wed or her sad relationship with her father but defines herself in her own right.  She visits her mother's grave for the first time one snowy winter day to apologize for not trying to understand her mother if only to embrace her and tell her she understands her mother's own tormented background and loves her unconditionally. 

The documentary takes us on her life's journey through the men she married, the films she starred in and the political life she embraced.  Her first marriage to French film director Roger Vadim with whom she had a child, to political left wing activist Tom Hayden with whom she had one child and finally to billionaire and media mogul Ted Turner.  Jane was a subsidiary of all of her marriages taking second place to the whims of what she thought the men in her life wanted her to be. 

Vadim emphasized her body cajoling her to act in mindless goddess films such as Barbarella.  Her leftward political turn and her own growth came as mine did during the Vietnam turbulent years of the Sixties.  Though combative I loved that era.  It infused her life and my own life with cerebral meaning. Her films were many. I am not able to list them all here but her notable films and ones which impacted my own life and hers were ones filled with social commentary.  They were "They Shoot Horses Don't They," a dance marathon film about the torturous Great 1929 Depression and the average people it crushed, "Coming Home," an anti Vietnam war film of the Sixties, "Julia," a profound look at the evils of fascism and Nazi Germany,  "China Syndrome," a statement on the dangers of nuclear power and  "On Golden Pond," coming full circle acting with her elderly father, Henry Fonda, reflecting the great depth of their own tortured relationship, Henry Fonda's explicit iciness to her and Jane's plea for love from him. 

This is a biographical documentary film for our time as the social split occurring in the late sixties between the left and the right has gotten argumentatively worse in this toxic Trumpian era.  Trump is a reflection of our broken nation and is a man who capitalizes on that brokenness. I loved this documentary because it takes me back to my own metamorphosis during the late Sixties at a university known for its Berkley-like leftist political slant at that time.  I went from a high school girl who questioned nothing to a woman decades later who questions everything as Jane Fonda's later films encourage one to do.

I urge you to see this biography and think about your own human development and what it means to take a political stand even if the ridicule one faces is smothering. I was not a radical at that time but I did love the anti-war radical leftists and black rights advocates including MLK and Malcolm X who had the fortitude to put their lives on the line for humane moral causes and a fierce desire to save their people and humanity from the death that those of privilege and power often deliver!

Now in her 80's Jane Fonda has found a new zest for life as she plays her last act going through it on her own terms.

Left wing money? I am in mourning today

Really, Judge Kavanaugh, really?  That accusation by Judge Kavanaugh of a left wing money cabal should have been met with strong push back from the Democrats on the Committee.  So the right doesn't drown their Republican candidates in money? No not much!  What was Citizens United all about anyway?

The left wing money is eclipsed 10 fold by right wing money of Koch, Adelson, Mercers, Richard Mellon Scaife and many other billionaires and corporations because the Supreme Court in their infinite wisdom decided corporations are people doncha know.  Republican billionaires and corporate money drown out Democratic opposition and, yes, even fix elections through the horror and inequities of the gerrymander not to mention a conservative Sup. Court demolishing the Voting Rights Act.

Republican candidates' money is the sewer upon which Republicans float!  Get real Judge Kavanaugh.   Judge Kavanaugh, you lie!

I believe Dr. Ford in triplicate!  Kavanaugh could not say he wanted the FBI investigation of the multitude of things the veracity of which could be found because he does not know what truth his friend Judge the only other witness in the room would say under oath!  It's obvious.  Democrats do not know how to fight.  They should be screaming the opposition of Kavanaugh who is going to negate ALL those equal rights fought for so hard over centuries for women, persons of color, Hispanics, immigrants (except white ones from Europe), the disabled, and the LGBT community.

I am in mourning today!

A NON--sexual analysis of Brett Kavanaugh by David Brock a former right wing conservative operative turned truth teller. Inbox x

David Brock on NBC: “I used to know Brett Kavanaugh pretty well. And, when I think of Brett now, in the midst of his hearings for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, all I can think of is the old "Aesop's Fables" adage: "A man is known by the company he keeps." And that's why I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy: Vote no. Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and personally. Brett actually makes a cameo appearance in my memoir of my time in the GOP, "Blinded By The Right." I describe him at a party full of zealous young conservatives gathered to watch President Bill Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address — just weeks after the story of his affair with a White House intern had broken. When the TV camera panned to Hillary Clinton, I saw Brett — at the time a key lieutenant of Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating various Clinton scandals — mouth the word "bitch."

But there's a lot more to know about Kavanaugh than just his Pavlovian response to Hillary's image. Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause.

Call it Kavanaugh's cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.

At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke. In a rough division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network, Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman, known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for partisan advantage.

When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)

Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the elves" — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than Brett Kavanaugh.

That critical flow of inside information allowed Starr, in effect, to set a perjury trap for Clinton, laying the foundation for a crazed national political crisis and an unjust impeachment over a consensual affair.

But the cabal's godfather was Ted Olson, the then-future solicitor general for George W. Bush and now a sainted figure of the GOP establishment (and of some liberals for his role in legalizing same-sex marriage). Olson had a largely hidden role as a consigliere to the "Arkansas Project" — a multi-million dollar dirt-digging operation on the Clintons, funded by the eccentric right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and run through The American Spectator magazine, where I worked at the time.

Both Ted and Brett had what one could only be called an unhealthy obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary. While Ted was pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions by pedaling the same garbage at Starr's office.

A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common decency.

Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.

Like millions of Americans this week, I tuned into Kavanaugh's hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with great interest. In his opening statement and subsequent testimony, Kavanaugh presented himself as a "neutral and impartial arbiter" of the law. Judges, he said, were not players but akin to umpires — objectively calling balls and strikes. Again and again, he stressed his "independence" from partisan political influences.

But I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is — because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun rights. 

But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us."

KANGAROO COURT

Witnesses who knew Brett Kavanaugh such as his roommate, Mark Judge and others such as Rameriz's (the second accuser's) roommate tell a different story.  Kavanaugh if not an alleged alcoholic was a big drinker and though a sober saint was alleged to be a nasty drunk. Kavanaugh's friend Mark Judge was known by John Heilman of "Morning Joe" because he was a bartender during those days in DC. He said last night on the "Last Word" he knew Mark Judge who came into the establishment to be a raving drunk, mean, and nasty.  Bring in the book written by Judge entitled "Wasted" which names a drunken character in the book as Bart O'Kavenaugh.  One does not have to know Dickens to see whom this character portrays. One can know a person by the company he keeps.

Add to this Michael Avenati's devastating interview on Rachel Maddow last evening vowing to reveal a third and security cleared believable accuser of Kavanaugh and there is a witch's brew of filth. Brett Kavanaugh should not be sitting on a lifetime appointment to the most prestigious and influential Supreme Court of the United States and as an ultra right wing "conservative" inflicting great damage on women, Hispanics, the poor, the powerless, persons of color and the LGBT community.

The explosive commentary of Michael Avenati who has a penchant for telling the truth and getting things done.  He says that Mark Judge and Kavanaugh were joined at the hip and poses a series of questions he wants Kavanaugh and Judge to answer.  They are about the following:

• The attorney Michael Avenatti claimed on Sunday that he had "significant evidence" that Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, participated in sexual misconduct in high school.
• Avenatti said he had evidence that at multiple house parties in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge would target women using alcohol and drugs "in order to allow a 'train' of men to subsequently gang rape them."

https://nypost.com/2018/09/23/avenatti-says-he-represents-woman-with-credible-information-about-kavanaugh/

There were statements in Kavanaugh's year book which were dastardly comments he thought funny about a woman whose reputation they besmirched.  There are other quotes I will not print here as they are too disgusting to print.

I aver Kavanaugh is NOT what he appears to be. This is a man Republicans choose to sit on the most prestigious most influential life-appointment position in the land.   Urge those senators who may be on the fence and even ones who are not to vote no for an alleged sex offender and an alleged even ultimately criminally indicted man as a Supreme Court justice.   He should not make SCOTUS a kangaroo court! 

RESIST

Climate Change Comes Home To Roost In North Carolina. Breached swine lagoons. Overflowing coal waste ponds. Sewage in the streets. The hellish aftermath of climate-fueled Hurricane Florence. Deny science at your peril

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This is UNBELIEVABLE!! Truly I am at a loss for words usually not a problem for me but holy god this is mind numbing. Those who do not believe in science will die by it. Science does not care if you believe that the tooth fairy causes global climate change. The laws of physics will prevail and do what the laws of physics will do.

If scientists -- 98% of them -- say the gouging on fossil fuels creates global climate change then you know what? I BELIEVE THEM!! Survival of the fittest rules! Raw sewage are in these waters along with coal ash waste from coal plants el presidente loves so much and from the deregulation of toxic waste creating a toxic stew meant to kill. Add to that hog fecal matter and my advice is to ask your "stable genius" Drumpf to send you some White House water!

According to the article above "There are water inundated homes, many still boarded up from Hurricane Matthew two years earlier. [Florence] swallowed farm operations, killing millions of chickens and turkeys and overflowing open pits full of hog feces. It flooded coal ash ponds, sending the toxic byproduct of burning coal into area waterways. The smell of human waste tainted neighborhoods; in the small town of Benson, 300,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the streets." Science -- deny it at your peril!

RESIST AND VOTE DEMOCRATS IN STATE, LOCAL AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, FEDERAL RACES TO SAVE YOUR STATE, YOUR NATION AND YOUR LIVES.  Send this to anyone you choose!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hurricane-florence-climate-change_us_5ba53abae4b069d5f9d2a909    Read this link and weep.  Keep voting Republican and you will be voting for sewage to contaminate you, your children, your grandchildren and their children -- if you have them -- even into the next century!

I am in awe

A good year to all, of course, including those who are not Jewish and I wish those who fast on this solemn day an easy one.

I am not religious but having been raised in the Jewish tradition I am still awed by and in love with the sights and sounds of it.

Kol Nidre is sung the evening before the day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish lunar calendar.  Jewish holidays begin on the evening before the day they are  celebrated.  Kol Nidre, I have always thought, is one of the most beautiful chants in Judaism sung the night before.  It means literally "All Vows."  It is a most plaintive and solemn chant sung at the beginning of the end of the Days of Awe -- 10 days beginning on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and ending on Yom Kippur dedicated to prayerful repentance for ones sins and a promise not to man but to God to do better.  It is said on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed asking the giver of all life to bless us with another year of it.

These days are dedicated to thought and reflection.  It is for us to take a kind of inventory of one's less laudable actions hoping on Yom Kippur one will be forgiven for them by a higher power who we ask to inscribe us in the Book of Life.  Kol Nidre is a song to make null and void all previous vows made not to men but to God.  They are vows we are permitted to erase and new ones, better ones made. Yom Kippur is a plea to a higher being no matter whom you think that being to be which has a dictate over the life and death of all. I wish all a long life, a good life, a happy life and that those unhappy times we all face in life we do so by our search for meaning in them.

In the concentration camps during the Holocaust -- the murder of the 6+ million Jews of Europe -- no matter the tortures inflicted by their cruel masters, no matter that death hovered around them like a dark fog bringing to those who were its prisoners -- most of them -- the slap of it but not by the prisoners' own hands.  Most wanted to live.  The question to me always was why with torture, sickness and sadness all around them did they choose not death but life.  Why was suicide for them usually not an option?   The German 19th century philosopher Schopenhauer tells us the strongest force in all humanity is "the will to live" and they tried to do so.  Some overcame the most bestial conditions and lived.  I am in awe of that. 

When I look around our nation and, indeed, the world hate is spewed from every corner of it.  Our nation has devolved into two camps who will not even talk to each other and whose leader promotes and basks in his discordant conduction.  How can the life of a nation prevail when hate courses through its veins poisoning our life-giving awe inspiring democratic system threatening to end it?  We must -- all of us -- try to do better and rescue it.  I am in awe of this life, this planet and the decent human beings that occupy it risking their own lives to save others.  A relative whom I loved died of ALS.  Even with his torturous affliction his license plate read "I luv 18."  It is significant, because it is the numerical value of the word Chai in Hebrew, which means life.   He loved life no matter the vicissitudes of it.

I am in awe of this planet, I am in awe of all life that surrounds it, and I am in awe of us who to strive to do better and sew a tapestry of love and not hate; of unification and not division.  I am in awe of that.  May those who strive to make a fairer, more just world be inscribed in the Book of Life.

Whos Next:Who's Next? -- an ode to Tom Lehrer by Lauren Mayer -- Brilliant, dedicated to Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRjWrCf79ao