Tag Archives: incitytimesworcester.org – ICT website

AIN’T IT A SHANE🎬

March 4, 2023 admin

By Rosalie Tirella

The videocassette of SHANE. photos: R.T.

SHANE. Such a terrific film. Such graceful performances. So many complex feelings and complicated conversations. Mystery made extra haunting because the action unfolds against the Teton mountains in Wyoming, filmed so beautifully. (Shane won the 1953 Oscar for best cinematography). You can learn some American history watching SHANE – open range cattlemen being supplanted by the new homesteaders; hired gun fighters being replaced by the rule of law. But there’s so much more to this 1953 Western directed by George Stevens and starring Alan Ladd. Mostly you can learn about love – the cozy, deep, familial kind and the exotic, exciting, restless kind. The unrequited kind and the kind that comes with rose-gold satin wedding gowns and forever vows.

Little Joey, Marian and Joe Starett

The film begins with Shane, a tanned, handsome Ladd wearing a fringed buckskin outfit, riding onto the property of homesteader Joe Starett – Van Heflin – and his wife Marion – Jean Arthur. The Staretts, farmers in the middle of their work day, look grubby. Ladd, arguably the territory’s fiercest gunfighter, looks glamorous. Naturally, the Staretts’ little boy, Joey, is starstruck by this very cool interloper. And for all his sex appeal, Shane is a super sensitive type, sensing the boy’s curiosity, innocence – and sweetness. He likes him. So he rides right up to Joey, who’s sitting on a fence, and says, “You were watching me for a while, weren’t you boy?” Joey sits quietly, with his head down, too shy to answer Shane. Shane reassures him: “I like a man who watches things…It means he’ll make his mark some day.”

Joey lifts up his head, smiling …

Shane sees Marian through the cabin window and is immediately attracted, drawn to a love, a life, he’s probably never known. I believe Marian is attracted to Shane, too. After all, it’s Marian who asks her husband to ask Shane to stay for dinner and spend the night. This happens after a misunderstanding surrounding Joey’s unloaded rifle and a startled Shane showing his true gunslinger instincts. Shane is slight, not very tall. Alan Ladd had a movie career full of standing on platforms to look as tall as costars or costars standing in trenches to look shorter than Ladd. In SHANE director Stevens let’s him just be, and it adds to Ladd’s portrayal of the taciturn gunfighter, gives Shane another dimension. After all, it’s more about brains than brawn. We see the physical puniness of Shane, yet marvel how it’s erased by his self-confidence, skill and sheer guts. He has a quiet lethality all his own.

Yet something in Marian’s serving of the slices of homemade pie, after her home-cooked dinner … pie with fresh coffee, with the special dessert forks … the quiet beauty and goodness of wife and mother Marian that moves Shane. After dinner – during which Shane furtively catches glimpses of Marian cooking over the hot stove, pouring the coffee at the supper table, serving a slice of pie to her son – Shane walks to the window and then to the seated Marian and thanks her: “It was an elegant dinner, Mrs. Starett.” Now it’s our turn to realize Shane is the elegant one here. Shane the poet, for whatever reasons, has made his living by his fancy gun.

How did such a man end up leading such a murderous life?

Now, seeing Marian, loving Joey, too, Shane – who’s handsome enough to have had any woman during his travels – realizes what he’s been missing, what he really wants. When husband Joe asks Shane during supper, “Where you headed?” Shane, his eyes sheepishly settling on Marian, says: “Some place I’ve never been.”

It’s a snow day: watch the film!

Marian understands. Husband Joe, a good, decent man full of integrity and honesty and his own brand of bravery, is a bit clueless here and grunts his approval before taking another bite of a chicken wing.

The Ryker brothers, the open range cattlemen hell bent on busting up the Staretts and the other homesteaders’ farms so they can run their thousands of head of cattle to market and to graze, are getting more aggressive with Joe and friends. They want these newbies OUT of their world. So they bully them and destroy their farms bit by bit: tear down fences one day, run their steer over planted crops another day. They kill a family’s sow sucking her piglets. The head Ryker boy eventually hires a professional gunfighter, Wilson – another Shane, only sadistic – played by Jack Palance – to murder Joe. Ryker knows that with leader Joe dead the other homesteaders will crumple.

So it’s up to Joe Starett – says Joe – to fight Ryker and save everybody. But he doesn’t know there’s a professional gunslinger – Wilson – waiting for him at Grafton’s general store and saloon. Shane knows what Joe’s up against and tells him he’s no match for Wilson. He’ll do the killing for Joe…and for Marian and Little Joey, whom he grows to love more and more each day. And the other homesteaders. Joe has hired Shane to help him on the farm, and Shane has gotten to know and like the other hardworking families. Shane, who respects Joe, has been staying on as his farm hand/ laborer … and friend. During this time Shane’s feelings for Marian grow stronger, and she senses she is falling for Shane, too.

What if your soulmate rides up to your family farm one day – and makes you feel feelings you never felt before? What if looking out a rain-streaked window, you see him, the one, hat on head, leather jacket soaked, his handsome face drowning in rain drops, looking back at you. You. The only one … with such sadness and longing. But you’re a mother. And you’ve been married for 10 years to a good man who loves and respects you and provides for you. What can you do but tell your little boy: “Don’t get to liking Shane too much …”

“Why not, Ma?”

“Because some day he’ll be moving on, and you’ll be upset.”

Then you blow out the flame in your lamp, and all of a sudden it’s dark.

What if …?

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

CANAL DISTRICT TRAFFIC PATTERNS AND MISSING STREET LIGHTS

February 4, 2022 admin

By Rosalie Tirella

1. In Worcester’s Canal District: I was driving through the PEANUT – the big trucks and 18 wheelers are a disaster! All the gritty, personal charm of the late great Kelley Square is gone. Now we’ve got the impersonal, speedway dubbed THE PEANUT. It blows!!

The Peanut. photos: R.T.

To me, the old Kelley Square felt safer to navigate: it was more personal and you had to slow down more often as you MADE EYE CONTACT WITH pedestrians or fellow drivers.

Ugh!

And the new, reversed, flipped, reconfigured street directions of the Canal District MAKE NO SENSE! The new one-ways were solely created to feed traffic to the freakin’ ballpark – nothing more. Forget the Green Island residents! They do not matter! Even local small businesses take a hit. When I was a kid growing up in Green Island, the traffic pattern made sense – it was set up (for years) to accommodate Green Islanders and local small businesses … designed to feed Green Island cars into Millbury Street for work, shopping and school. And Millbury Street emptied into Kelley Square for more shopping and to connect to I 290. Now? Chaos!

2. And what disrespect, courtesy of CM Ed Agustus and crew! The newly manufactured ballpark street – whatever its name is – gets A TON OF FANCY NEW STREET LIGHTS and, parallel to it, my beloved old Lamartine Street has around three old street lights.

New, ultra-illuminated ballpark street to the left; dark Lamartine Street to the right.

Lamartine – the thoroughfare that does all the work, connects to Grosvenor, Lodi, Lunel, Langdon, Scott and Meade streets and the rest of Green Island (Lafayette, Bigelow and Endicott streets and more), in other words, ALL THE GREEN ISLAND RESIDENTS is hardly illuminated! Very unsafe! Just a few crumby old street lights light up Lamartine – the ones from my Lafayette Street childhood. Yet Lamartine is the street that actually does all the work! It’s the street that’s actually used by drivers! The street that has workaday traffic year ’round. Outside the ball games, the new, ultra-lit ballpark street (to the left in my night photo) gets very little traffic! See the car, to the right, on Lamartine? And the one street light lighting its way? Pathetic.

Fashion

🎄🦌🕊️Edith, always in style! … Bringing nature indoors🦌

December 4, 2021 admin

By Edith Morgan

Edith🦌🦌🦌

We had our first frost and we had an almost imperceptible layer of snow. So we know winter is coming. We brought in our potted plants, got our leaves swept up, drained our rain barrels and our outside faucets, and prepared to welcome winter.

No more bouquets of fresh flowers and decorative grasses – but that does not mean that there are not potential bouquets’ out there, though they wil not be as colorful as their summer cousins.

I love the dried flowers of our hydrangea bushes: some are round, but some are large oval, grape-like clusters of dried blossoms that have gone from pink to purple to brown and have dried and retained their shape. And the tall seed-pods of many flowers, as well as many weeds, dry and keep their shape.

You can see grey wolves in Worcester out by the Holden line. Coyotes are a frequent sight, too – as are foxes! All beautiful!

We used to call it “Nature Morte” (dead nature), and many famous paintings have been inspired by these remnants of summer. In their own way they are beautiful, even if the palette is more limited. But there are so many shades of yellow, tan, brown and white that you can put together impressive arrangements of many shapes! The wonderful part is that they will stay just as they are, not needing water or any attention.

Hawks on Salisbury Street

As the various holidays come, I add some timely extra decorations, and so these winter bouquets are always up-to-date with the most recent holiday.

♥️

Of course, we have our “real” flowers: my amaryllo bulbs are seeing in the basement, ready to come up and bloom. And my daughter’s Christmas cactus has already formed buds and should be covered with blossoms in time for the holidays.

I am an incorrigible optimist and never let a seed go to waste: I save all kinds of seeds, stick them in the nearest flower pot, and hope that something will come up (sometimes it actually does!).

And often, if you do not use fresh potatoes or yams soon enough, they will sprout and maybe grow. I figure if they are willing to try to make it under such difficult conditions, they deserve a break. I plant them to see what will grow.

So, enjoy “indoor nature” all winter long, and adapt to the subtleties of the seasons!

Jett in autumn leaves… November 2021.

Fashion

Vegetarianism – always in style! 🌽🫑🍞🥦Especially during Thanksgiving!🍠🥔💚🥬🫑🍆🥕💚🌽🥦

November 8, 2021 admin

November is World Vegan Month!

By Heather Moore

Happy World Vegan Month! Every November, vegans and vegan-curious folk — those interested in trying more healthful, humane foods —bcelebrate the ever-growing popularity of vegan living. Journalists estimate that there are at least 79 million vegans in the world, based on the numbers recorded in Australia, India, the U.K., the U.S. and other nations with a blossoming vegan population. A 2020 study found that the number of vegans in the U.S. alone increased by 300% — about 9.6 million people — between 2004 and 2019.

This Thanksgiving go for the TOFURKEY vegan holiday roast with stuffing – available at TRADER JOE’S IN SHREWSBURY, rt 9, right over the bridge.

If you haven’t already, why not pledge to go vegan for World Vegan Month? You’ll be in good company, and you’ll have plenty of options. Experts forecast that the global vegan food market will mushroom to over $24 billion by 2026, and analysts at Barclays bank predict that the global vegan food and drink market will expand by more than 1,000% by the end of the decade.

Vegans are sprouting up left and right because of mounting concerns about cruelty to animals, the climate crisis and health problems. I went vegan 28 years ago, primarily for ethical reasons. I was vegetarian for several years before that, until I realized that I was still supporting cruelty to animals, albeit unintentionally.

I knew that cows killed for their flesh are branded with hot irons, their horns are cut or burned off, and the males are castrated — without pain relief — but I didn’t understand that cows forced to produce milk suffer just as much, if not more.

On dairy farms, cows are repeatedly and forcibly impregnated so that they’ll produce a steady supply of milk for human consumption. When they give birth, their calves are taken away from them — the males are often killed for veal, and the females are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers. Eventually, they all end up at the slaughterhouse, dangling by a hind leg with their throats cut.

Today!

And while I knew that it’s cruel to cram chickens raised for meat — smart, sentient birds who grieve when they lose a loved one — into filthy, severely crowded sheds before cutting their throats and often scalding them to death, I wasn’t aware that similar abuses are inflicted on egg-laying hens.

Most egg-laying hens spend their lives confined to a space the size of a standard file cabinet drawer with up to 10 others, unable even to lift a wing. A portion of each bird’s sensitive beak is cut off with a hot blade. Male chicks are useless to hatcheries — they don’t produce eggs, and they aren’t bred to produce the excessive flesh desired by the meat industry — so they’re usually suffocated or tossed into a grinder while they’re still alive.

Beaks are removed when they are alive; they are scalded in hot water!! EAT LESS MEAT!!!

Abuse, abuse, abuse … EAT LESS MEAT AND FEWER EGG DISHES!

Since animals are routinely killed by both the milk and egg industries, being vegetarian wasn’t enough for me. Fortunately, vegan options are now easy to find. Vegan foods not only taste great, they’re cruelty- and cholesterol-free and generally low in saturated fat. Vegans are less likely to suffer from heart disease, diabetes and cancer, and vegan foods don’t cause animal-borne diseases, such as bird flu, swine flu and COVID-19. If you’re concerned about the environment, you’ll be pleased to know that producing vegan food uses up fewer resources and generates a lower volume of greenhouse gases than producing animal-derived foods does.

Save the planet, make more of your meals plant-based!

When you consider the many benefits of going vegan, it makes sense that millions of people are celebrating World Vegan Month this November.

Will you be one of them?

Do it for the planet, your health and the beautiful, sentient animals!

🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌

And … Vegan baking cheat-sheet for your holidays!♥️💚🍃:

InCity Voices

Worcester’s 2021 Municipal Election – the Results are in!

November 3, 2021 admin

By Jim Coughlin

Jim. Photos submitted.

Worcester’s 2021 Municipal election for Worcester City Council and Worcester School Committee only drew 16% of the city’s eligible voters to the polls, but the biggest surprise of the evening came with surprise victory of first time candidate Thu Nguyen who captured the fourth slot for Worcester City Councillor at Large, bumping out Matt Wally, district councillor incumbent and Worcester political good old Irish boy network insider … Nguyen got 7,364 votes in a race that had 10 candidates competing for the six city councillor at large seats.

Nguyen won 10.9% of the vote.

Thu Nguyen

Wally, the district 5 councillor who gave up his seat in the hopes of following in the footsteps of councillor at large Gary Rosen who is retiring from politics and formerly held the district 5 seat and later won an at large seat in 2011, fell short of winning an at large seat by 678 votes. He came in seventh place, with 6,658 votes.

Gary Rosen’s retiring from political office …

But with Nyguen’s win, as the first Southeast Asian non-binary candidate, this is a major “breakthrough” in diversifying the face of the Worcester City Council. Not only is this a “political first” for Worcester, but Nyguen’s win is believed to be the first win by a Southeast Asian/non-binary city council candidate in Massachusetts and maybe all of New England as well.

I remember Thu was the very first candidate to announce their candidacy for city council back in January of this year. However, perhaps what is most striking is not only that they won and placed 4th in the 10 candidate field but that they defeated Matt Wally who, in the minds of many, and according to reliable sources, was considered as a councillor the insiders at City Hall were grooming to succeed long-time incumbent Mayor Joseph Petty. (Petty easily won re-election as both Worcester City Councillor at Large and as Worcester Mayor. He will also chair the Worcester School Committee.) …

Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty … slated to become the longest serving mayor in Worcester’s history. Joe’s a good man. Cecelia/ICT file photo.

… But with Nyguen taking the open seat on the city council, the Wally scenario will not be happening anytime soon.

In years and decades past, the Worcester City Council was mostly comprised of nine White European North American men who were mostly either Irish … sometimes Italian. That dynamic changed in 1973 with the election of three women for the first time in the city’s history: Mary Scano, Barbara Kohin Barbara J. Sinnott.

At the time, this political sea change on the city council was called by various local pundits and observers as the “year of the women.” This did not last long because, two years later, all three women councillors were voted out by Worcester voters.

It was not until just under a decade later in November, 1981, that the previous method of councillors caucusing with each other after the election to see who amongst them would become Mayor that the Worcester City Council produced the first woman Mayor in our city’s history, Sara J. Robertson. Robertson had previously served on the Worcester School Committee and was subsequently elected to the city council in the late 1970s.

At the time, this was big news. And in later years, the councillors selected another woman, former councillor at large Konstantina “Konnie” Lukes to serve as mayor from 1982 to 1983. In 2019, Lukes decided not to seek re-election to the city council.

But the surprise victory of Thu in our election is big news for the Worcester. As a result, it puts the notion and the reality in place that our city council is open to all in the political arena, regardless of their background.

Last night, I happened to accompany another council candidate, Johanna Hampton Dance who challenged incumbent District 2 City Councillor Candice “Candy” Mero-Carlson. I sat and waited with the candidate until just about 8 p.m. when the polls had closed election night. Dance was sitting with a small group of supporters and friends at about a little past at 8 p.m. at a bar called “Electric Haze” on Millbury Street when council candidate Thu Nguyen walked in accompanied by a campaign aide. When they came in the candidate did not know what was going to happen within the next hour that would once again be a “game changer” in Worcester politics.

Shortly after 9 p.m. Thu, who was seated with a few supporters and had their eyes glued to a cell phone, heard that they had won the open city council seat. This news even surprised them! A few days ago, they wrote in a Facebook post, “I also hold that – statistically- “a person like me shouldn’t win. I am a new challenger.” Their election even surprised caused th the first-time candidate to break out into a jubilant cheer! They flashed a broad smile and their supporters cheered as the announcement was made!

In fact, I can say for the record that I was the second person to congratulate them upon the surprise victory. In congratulating them, I was the first one to call Nguyen by their newly acquired prefix for the former council candidate: “Councillor-Elect Nguyen”!

There is a lot! The notion that the Worcester City Council is a group of “Nine White Irish Catholic Guys” is for sure a chapter in our city’s ancient past. Our urban, American story has permanently changed.

♥️🇺🇸

Fashion

💐Edith – always in style! Her new 🍀🍀🍀 column!

March 7, 2021 admin

🍀Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with some Corned Beef and Cabbage🍀🇺🇸🍀

By Edith🍀 Morgan

Edith🌿🍀🌿🍀

It’s March, and we are all preparing to be Irish on the 17th. Rose has already posted Chef Joey’s Irish Soda Bread recipe. But, for me, St. Patrick’s Day always brings forth the special foods that begin to appear at the grocery stores and at the restaurants.

This is the time of year when the price of cabbage goes way down, and you see, at the meat counters, display packets of corned beef in various forms. And while I have not one single Irish ancestor on either side of my family, I nevertheless remember my mother and I, after her, prepare corned beef every spring. We like the lean, bright red cuts of corned beef, prepackaged with the small packets of flavorings, spices and herbs.

Cute “life-sized” leprechaun hangs out at Edith’s! photo: E.M.

It takes many hours of boiling to bring the corned beef to just the right state of doneness (is that a word?) and to create a tasty soup to use afterward. I cook my corned beef in a big pot, in lots of water, with caraway seeds and some onion. Since the corned beef is usually very salty, I rinse it off several times before cooking.

After anywhere from 3 to 5 hours of steady boiling, I take it out of the water, slice off as much of the fat as I can, let it cool down a bit to solidify – then slice it. I like mine lean and in thick slices. After the soup has cooled off enough, I skim off the fat that has begun to solidify at the top, and then I prepare the vegetables.

I don’t really know if a “New England boiled Dinner” is the same thing as the traditional corned beef and cabbage we associate with the Irish, but I have my own favorite version: I peel large white potatoes, and large carrots …

photo: Chef Joey

… and boil them in the soup left over from the corned beef.

Well before the global pandemic caused me to stay at home for months, I used to go to the Pickle Barrel Restaurant in our city’s Piedmont neighborhood and have Gus’s corned beef dinner – generous slabs of very lean, thick corned beef, boiled potato and carrots. Delicious.

And, of course, for days, we would eat the boiled dinner meals at home – making sandwiches and salads with left-over bits of corned beef. My neighbors across the street (they are now gone) always baked Irish Soda Bread and shared a loaf with me.

So, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to all! Enjoy the foods of the season!

InCity Voices

⛄Missing Bernie⛄ … We almost made it!❄❤

February 20, 2021 admin

By Chris Horton

A Bernie for President supporter and volunteer – a cashier at Price Chopper supermarket, Worcester. photo submitted.

A year ago I was volunteer coordinator of We Want Bernie for President, Worcester – and we were winning! We were six weeks out from winning Worcester. Bernie had swept the first three primary contests, and we knew he was going to win the nomination. We were riding the wave of a popular political uprising against the rule of the billionaire class, fueled by the people’s anger over years of being robbed and swindled and denied the benefits of living in an advanced technological society.

We were going to beat the crap out of Donald Trump at the polls
in November.

FILE - In this April 13, 1934 file photo, President Franklin D. Roosevelt smiles as he speaks to a Congressional welcoming committee which met him at Union Station on his return to Washington. (AP Photo) — FILE – In this April 13, 1934 file photo, President Franklin D. Roosevelt smiles as he speaks to a Congressional welcoming committee which met him at Union Station on his return to Washington. (AP Photo)

We were on fire! In six weeks we would defeat Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, her home state, ending her campaign. She had hoped to displace Bernie – or at least to derail our campaign – by peeling away the professionals, the intellectuals, the upper middle class. We settled that matter, right here in Worcester. She may have been a great voice against the banksters, but Bernie was our voice, the voice of the working people and the youth, the powerful voice of a great growing coalition, Black, brown and white … native born and immigrant, English and Spanish culture, united in a common cause.

A year ago Covid-19 was just a little cloud on the horizon, but the gnawing fear of another Trump win was already weakening our campaign, with almost half the voters at the doors too terrified of Trump to care about the issues.

Then, after Bernie solidly beat Joe Biden in their one-on-one
debate, exposing him as a liar about Social Security, the whole media establishment, the whole political establishment and the labor and civil rights establishments suddenly all agreed that the hapless and uninspiring Joe Biden had won, and was our last best hope for stopping Trump.

The final blow was COVID-19 shutting down our rallies and our door to door campaign.

With our press coverage nearly cut off, the negative ad campaigns going into high gear and our allies were begging Bernie to give up and support Biden, scarcely two months from now last year Bernie would have to yield.

In the end, faced with Donald Trump – an out-of-control would-be dictator and a genuine threat from an armed white-nationalist movement openly intending to force his reelection by fair means or
foul – many of them openly calling and preparing for a civil war – Bernie called on us to turn and fight them.

Not all of us could bring ourselves to just trust him and do it, but those
who did made all the difference.

I was honestly not that surprised, nor were the other veterans of the campaign of 2015 and 2016, those of us who had had the heart to try again. (Not all of us could!) What, we wonder, wouldn’t our billionaire class be willing to do to stop us next time?

And how many of us would have the heart to try yet again?

So here we are, seemingly back where we
started six years ago, but under the surface everything has changed. We, the regular people, have spoken out, we have felt our power and we have discovered each other. We have new language for what we know and believe. We’ve seen the little man behind the curtain and we’ve shouted that the Emperor has no clothes.

InCity Voices

Breakfast time, in France …

January 17, 2021 admin

Text+pics by Chef Joey

Pal Joey!!!!

France. The country known for its delicious food, rich in butter … sauces, creams and, of course, flavor. One thing about the French: lunch is the meal of the day. Breakfast and dinner are the light side of the spectrum. My grandmother Hélène had an expression: “You eat like a prince in the morning, a king at noon, and a pauper at night.” This still rings true; lunch is an important meal. Here in France banks and many stores close for a two-hour civilized lunch break.

🍎

Breakfast is typically always a warm beverage, café au lait, tea or even hot chocolate. When I was a kid in France I walked to the bakery every morning to get the paper for my grandparents and a fresh baguette. Every now and then I would get a croissant. However, it was a treat because it cost more than a loaf of bread. It still is the same here. The price of fresh bread is set by the government and cannot be more than .95 cents for a baguette. There are many different breads, all at various prices: country style, brioche, whole wheat and even double-sized baguettes called “restaurant bread.”

My favorite memory of being a child, and now doing the same for my daughter Gigi, is a fresh baguette sliced in half and filled with butter and jam.

French toast, an afternoon snack

Confiture “Bonne Maman” is available in the states, and hands down it is one of the best. I do not go to the bakery daily; I buy the bread and freeze it immediately. Five minutes in the oven and it is as fresh as the day I bought it!

Another alternative is frying your bread in butter. It’s delicious and a great way to use stale bread. French toast is an afternoon snack for energy – I’ve never really had it for breakfast.

Another item is a piece of cake, literally! This recipe is from my grandmother, who named it after herself – Gâteau Taunte Hélène.

Aunt Helene’s Cake:

the recipe❤

Simple and delicious:

1 plain yogurt yogurt (8 oz)

1 cup sugar (I use ½)

1 tsp rum

2 eggs

½ cup oil

2 cups flour

1 tbsp baking powder

Beat the eggs. Mix with the yogurt and add everything else. Pour into a pan and bake 350 degrees for about 15 mins in a 9-inch round pan. Use a toothpick to test. Simple and delicious!

InCity Voices

By Edith: “The voting is done!🇺🇸 Now for the ballot count🇺🇸!

November 5, 2020 admin

By Edith Morgan

Edith and family🇺🇸

Editor’s note: This column was written the day after election. Edith Morgan is my best writer!👏👏👏👏
– Rose

I voted early and in person. And then, last night, on November 3, I sat up until after midnight to get some feel for what was happening in our country. But I finally had to go to sleep, when it become evident that there would not be a final answer to the question of who won the presidency. (Regardless of Trump’s spurious claims that he won!).

As of early afternoon on [November 5, here is what we know: Democrat Joe Biden has 264 electoral votes, Repub/incumbent Donald Trump has 214 R.T.] … [Several swing states are still in play, although Biden has won Michigan R.T.].

The counting continues, and we can expect to have to wait many hours for final results – maybe even days. Delays due to legal maneuvers could lengthen the time before we have a final tally every where.

The “Blue Wave” I had hoped for and expected did not materialize. Rather, it was a slow and steady trickle, with millions of Americans voting early and by mail, so that the expected huge surge on Tuesday was kept manageable. Here in Worcester, at least, the polls were not overwhelmed: no one had to stand in long lines out in the cold and blustery weather.

❤❤❤❤❤

I have tried to watch for any reports of violent or threatening behavior anywhere, but apparently so far the protective plans taken by most of the election officials and their governors seem to have prevented any outbreaks. Of course, we will never know how many voters were fearful enough to stay home, especially if they had planned to vote in person on election day!

I was very disappointed that Mitch McConnell was not defeated; but of course if the Democrats manage to flip the Senate, then he will become minority leader. I was also hoping that Lindsay Graham would bite the dust, but he also managed to squeak through for another term.

I don’t know what to make of the election results so far, except that I am badly disappointed in the results. I had hoped that the American people would hand down a resounding message to Trump: that lying, violence, threatening, bragging and supporting authoritarians, bigots, the KKK were not acceptable by an American president. I was hoping for a resounding endorsement for science, responsibility and generosity! So far, these things seem to be struggling to be in the American mainstream, while for four years, we have watched Trump shred democracy, break all manner of law.

Trump promised to get rid of laws … his illegal strongarm executive orders are now mainstreamed into every facet of the Executive Branch. There is so much work left to be done before we clean out the Aegean stable created by the Trump administration and its acolytes. But I have to believe that more and more citizens will finally see that the ship of state is listing badly and needs help.

🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤:

🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂
FYI:

Fashion

President Donald J. Trump has COVID 19

October 4, 2020 admin

By Edith Morgan

Edith

The COVID 19 virus is truly an equal opportunity invader – and seems finally to have reached the supposedly safest house in America -the Trump White House.

After Trump called the virus a “Democrats’ hoax” and saying it would just disappear and telling reporter Bob Woodward that he knew how deadly it was but did not tell the public because he did not want to panic us … and leading millions of Americans to avoid wearing face masks … now has come home to Trumpland. Trump and wife Melania are at Walter Reed Hospital, under quarantine, and for all practical purposes out of mainstream life for a couple of weeks.

This is so close to the November election! Trump is – of course – in a Presidential Suite in the hospital, getting the best medical care in the world … and he claims he will carry on his presidential duties from Walter Reed. He does not look well …

Meanwhile, Trump has exposed so many people around him: not just family members, but staff, military personnel, Secret Service men and women and all those tasked with guarding and transporting him, not to mention the thousands packed together in his rallies.

😪😪😪

Most of us have continued to listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci and our doctors and the research scientists who have continuously reminded us to wash our hands, wear facial masks and keep our distance.

Let us all hope that the very professional staff at Walter Reed, who have in the past performed so many near-miracles, will be on top of this problem and that Trump will quickly recover, without the really bad time that Boris Johnson of the UK experienced.

Do you all recall the story of “The boy who cried wolf”? After so many lies, misinformation, flip-flops, and incessant tweets, my first instinct was that this news was just another diversion caused by Trump because of his plummeting poll figures to provide an excuse to delay the election – or to say it was all rigged. When you have been lied to often enough, you begin to question everything.

I will assume for the time being, that this is the real thing: apparently the Trump tweets that used to come in the middle of the night, by the dozens, seem to have stopped – a sign that Trump is not up to doing that!

There are so many questions, but this White House is so secretive that we can only speculate.
So, stay tuned, wear your masks, wash your hands, stay 6 feet apart and keep healthy – flu season is just around the corner.