In support of rational and compassionate public policy at all levels of government which affect the residents of Newtown Township and Bucks County
Fact: Students need a factual account of our history, including slavery and its residual effects on rights and freedoms available to all Americans.
Fact: Transgender children exist. They are harmed when we criminalize their parents' support, and erase them from public view and from materials available in schools.
Fact: Climate change is real. Developing clean energy and related technologies within these shores is an urgent matter of national security.
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
~ John Adams
Featured Video: Caroline Randall Williams
This is an example of what our history looks like to a descendant not just of enslaved Black Americans, but also of the Confederate insurrectionists and rapists who fought to keep their own children in chains. It's essential reading for all Americans, and an example of the type of story the "anti-CRT" crowd wants to keep out of public schools.
"I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.
"If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument."
As Israelis and Gazans fall in line with their violent and incompetent leaders, a framework which could yield lasting peace becomes impossible to imagine, yet alone build.
I haven't blogged about Gaza since my broad characterization of the politics of the war a few months ago. The reason is simple. When something is falling, the next noteworthy event is when it crashes to the ground.
The horror in Gaza has worsened by an order of magnitude or more without tangible change to the fundamentals. Hamas and Netanyahu are doing what they promised, without regard for their standing in the world. Both have grown more popular within their own populations, as they have expanded, in word and deed, their dehumanization of the humans on the other side. And as Gazan civilians starve or are blown to bits, genocide moves closer to an apt description of the reality on the ground. Apologists on both sides make arguments hobbled by outright lies, and by glaring omissions: either that 10/7 happened (on the Hamas side) or that the Nakba happened (on the Israeli side). By not articulating a post-war plan for Gaza, Netanyahu has signaled his intention to turn Gaza into an open-air prison, deprived of resources and isolated as never before, for anyone who survives his onslaught.
Rafah is about to become the white hot center of Gaza. Barring an unlikely change in the momentum of the conflict, Netanyahu will set in motion one of the worst humanitarian disasters in history. By the numbers, Rafah already has the same population as Philadelphia, 1.5 million, crammed into 1/6 of the area, and with a small fraction of Philadelphia's life-sustaining resources. An invasion would result in mass civilian casualties and obliteration of those resources.
There is an element of desperation in Netanyahu's latest public statements and actions. Despite having predicted that the war in Gaza would extend for many months, perhaps into 2025, Netanyahu now claims total victory will be achieved within a few weeks of his invasion of Rafah. There is no longer much talk about bringing the hostages home, and no plan to do so. Thumbing his nose at international pressure and especially at the Biden administration, Netanyahu has continued to expand West Bank settlements. While his defiant posture is not sustainable for the long term, Netanyahu seems more interested in extending his time in power for the short term.
The details of the impending crash in Gaza, and the broad scatter of debris from that crash into the Middle East and elsewhere, remain to be seen. What seems certain, and it's horrible to contemplate, is that the body count of the crash will dwarf that we have experienced so far. Demolishing Gaza may prevent Hamas terrorists from using their tunnels to invade Israel from the west. But as we have seen this week in Russia, nowhere in the world is safe from terrorism, and Israel's enemies must be doubly motivated to continue the emerging cycle of vengeance.
Once again a new, highly successful right-wing politician is speaking a language only those on the right understand. And once again those on the left have fallen into the trap of holding this person up for public ridicule. It's the "basket of deplorables" 2.0.
It's counterintuitive but true: Securing the southern border won't affect the flow of fentanyl into the US. Brian Fitzpatrick must know this. So why does he keep claiming it will?
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Me Imperturbe
Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the best—I am not subordinate;) Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland, A river-man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
~ Walt Whitman
Tired
I am so tired of waiting, Aren’t you, For the world to become good And beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife And cut the world in two – And see what worms are eating At the rind.
