Author: cheriebell69@hotmail.com

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Twelve daze of Trumpmess

On the first day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

a federal inquiry!

On the second day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

two hushed honeys and a federal inquiry!

On the third day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

three years for fixin’, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the fourth day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

4 a.m. tweeting, three years for fixin’, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the fifth day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the sixth day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

six sneaky staffers,

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the seventh day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

seven Russian theories, six sneaky staffers,

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the eighth day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

eight victory rallies, seven Russian theories, six sneaky staffers,

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the ninth day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

nine DNC hackers, eight victory rallies, seven Russian theories,

six sneaky staffers,

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the tenth day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

ten legal experts, nine DNC hackers, eight victory rallies,

seven Russian theories, six sneaky staffers,

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the eleventh day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

11 a.m. work days, ten legal experts, nine DNC hackers,

eight victory rallies,seven Russian theories, six sneaky staffers,

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys

and a federal inquiry!

On the twelfth day of Trumpmess, our country came to see

twelve meddlin’ Russians, 11 a.m. work days, ten legal experts,

nine DNC hackers, eight victory rallies, seven Russian theories,

six sneaky staffers,

five plea deals!

4 a.m. tweets, three prison years, two hushed honeys …

and a federal inquiry!! 

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A little Christmas brings time to reflect, remember and rejoice

Ours will be a little Christmas this year.  No big deal.  No winter vacation.  No decking the halls with Christmas memorabilia as in years past.  No expensive presents or major gifts (that I know of, tee!).   No, my husband and dogs and I will have to be content sharing love and appreciation and maybe a hot toddy.  The Christmas lack, merchandise-wise, is due to me … still waiting to hear back from our federal government.  Remember around Easter/Passover when I blogged about starting a new nonprofit to advocate for journalism and journalists?  That’s my one and only attempt at starting a business and relying on final approval from our government, as my work will be not-profit driven, just a passionate cause.

As for spreading yuletide cheer, I’ll spend a few dollars on small gifties.  I won’t say exactly what, just in case a recipient is reading.  But suffice it to say, my contributions this year will be stocking stuffers.

But oh how I’ve enjoyed some wonderful Christmases past!  My earliest memories are sealed in black-and-white snapshots: of artificial Christmas trees, green or white, decorated with fragile bulbs of electric red, yellow, blue and green.  And each day coming home from elementary school to find another huge box wrapped in red paper with Santas and reindeer or wreaths.  Inside may have been a girl’s vanity dressing table or a psychedelic-designed record player or a new doll like Velvet.  My parents spared no expense on the holiday, so it seemed.  But actually my sibling and I were learning some valuable lessons.  In those days my father worked at Sears and had a big employee discount.  So he allowed us to pick anything we wanted from the annual Wishbook up to $50 each.  We didn’t know about taxes but often would pick toys totaling right up to $49.99, never daring to go over $50.  It really was generous of Dad.

During the ’70s I usually chose the latest Barbie dolls, clothes and accessories.  My entire collection is from the closets of TV’s Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern.  One year Santa gave me something I did not order: a Barbie Karosel Kitchen.  It ran on large batteries that needed frequent replacement, but it contained six sections, one with a laundry machine, next a clothes dryer, a kitchen sink, dishwasher, oven, and refrigerator.  You’d press a button to turn the red Karosel and press another button for sounds resembling cleaning, washing or cooking.  It was kinda strange, especially since I didn’t ask for it.  Why would a kid want to spend time with Barbie pretending to do chores?

It took a couple of years for me to find Barbie clothes in the Wishbook.  But I ended up with lots of fashions like assorted boots and heels, large round pastel eyewear, all to go with miniskirts and maxi dresses of the era.  I ordered a Barbie car, an orange two-seat convertible; a tent with sleeping bags and tiny outdoor cooking gear; and my most cherished present a Barbie sleep-and-keep case.  The case stored two Barbies, but I squeezed in my Ken dolls, too, and a pile of clothes and grooming accessories.  One side allowed for a pull-down bed—a tribute to the ’70s with wall art like Love and the peace sign and a groovy flowery bedspread of bright orange and hot pink.

The Christmas blog

Of all my childhood preteen memories, Christmas 1973 is the most important.  It was the year my parents surprised me with the most enormous and heavy present too big to fit under the Christmas tree.  I had no idea what it could be as it sat there a couple of weeks tagged with my name.  So when the unwrapping arrived, I found this humongous gift was a real stereo system complete with two large separate speakers and a turntable/FM AM radio/8-track player encased in a faux brown wood compartment, placed above a rack for my growing record collection.  It was the gift I never knew I wanted.

My parents, however, had an ulterior motive in providing me such an expensive and totally unexpected present.  For a couple of years, I had a habit of taking over their stereo console in the den, turning their country radio stations to rock and listening to my records on their grand system instead of my little kid record player.  I was of an age where I could distinguish the audible nuances between a record player and a stereo.  I was 11.  So they set me up with a stereo system popular with teens and young adults.  Wow!  They just wanted me to listen to the music I liked in my bedroom.  Guess they tired of hearing Grand Funk’s We’re an American Band over and over and over again.  I didn’t realize it back then, but that gift made such a life-altering impact as I grew into a serious music lover.  Too, I realized I had to be mature handling a real stereo system.  For a couple of years I wouldn’t allow my friends to touch it.

By the end of the ’70s, Christmas was getting to be a drag.  I was old enough to realize how much things cost, no longer able to give my friends individual gifts anymore.  By the time I was 18, our family didn’t even put up a tree let alone bother with wrapping gifts.  Still, unexpectedly my mother got me a large cylinder basket and matching rattan chair from Pier 1.  She knew I loved hanging out at that store, soaking up its exotic Eastern world allure.  I walked into my bedroom after work one night, turned on the light, and there were the furnishings made in India or some place, awaiting my delight and appropriate thankfulness.

It’s not that I’m depressed this year, but Christmas is a time of massive amounts of stuff including food that just makes us all fat and fatter.  It is extremely hard to have Christmas in moderation, isn’t it?  But when money is sparse, that’s how it has to be.  My parents always recalled their impoverished Depression-era childhood Christmases, when the gift would be hair supplies, socks, and if lucky assorted nuts still in their shells and an orange.  Just the smell of an orange brings back Christmas memories, my folks say year round.  Not for me.  It’s the smell of Scotch tape!  The connection must be from wrapping gifts during the holidays.

This year I am not pulling out the Christmas boxes and displaying all the seasonal collections around the house.  I did splurge on purchasing one new Christmas decoration: a replica of a mid-century white porcelain Christmas tree with tiny multi-colored plastic bulbs.  It operates on batteries and has a four-hour timer.  Our house was built in 1946, and I had seen the original tree décor at antique shops.  So I knew it would fit the past Christmases spent by the previous family of our home.  That lone colorful white Christmas tree, placed on a table, is enough to celebrate the season, that plus the wreath on the front door.  And for the first time, I’m not mailing Christmas cards.  Sorry ya’ll.  I’ll create some festive image and season’s greeting on the computer and mass email to friends and family.

More importantly is not to forget what we’re celebrating along with the birth of Christ and the beginning of a new world religion if not an optimistic worldview—based on forgiveness and love for all mankind.  Winter solstice, an ancient celebration of earth and the changing season, occurs around the same time as Christmas, and it is no coincidence.  It doesn’t matter when Christ was born, but the timing in December wraps up, so to speak, a holy day of respect and recognition of our home planet and our family: of cold and warmth, bitter and sweet, past and present, concern and comfort.  Christmas is what we make it, for ourselves and for others.  So happy holidaze everyone this year!  Let us be merry and bright and full of good cheer!

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Texas wants to straighten out straight-party ballots and voters

They’re not fooling me one bit: the Texas Legislature and all the work they’ve been a-doin’ from the Clinton to the Obama administrations, gerrymandering precincts and now disallowing voters to select the straight-party option.  I remember during the 20th century when local Republican and Democratic party chairs recommended all voters simply check the straight-party option conveniently located at the top of the ballot, each party chair maintaining theirs had the best and most outstanding candidates in all races.  In that bygone era the party elders just wanted to make it easy on voters since so many if not most don’t vote at all.  Too, they knew most voters don’t bother researching each and every race such as all those district judgeships and state commissions—names we’ve never heard of let alone the duties of each office.

Yeah, we’re just a bunch of ignert ol’ hicks spread out all over this great big Lone Star state like a swipe of mustard on a bun.  All right, maybe ignorance is kinda true for a lot of voters, folks just pickin’ names on the ballot based on vague familiarity and past acquaintances from high school and church (no one we really know or heard of running for office) or to quote the late Molly Ivins when Texas voters chose ‘cute’ names on the ballot and in the process voted for “the wrong Don Yarborough.”  Mostly straight-ticket voters are probably sticking to the political party with which they define themselves and likely always have.

My fellow Texans, it’s gonna be up to us to decide how we gonna play this game called e-lek-shuns.  And it’s gotta start with knowing the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Grandpa knew the difference

My grandfather was asked this question by his children.  Back in those days, he intently listened to the news on the radio as well as read the daily newspaper.  He took our nation’s history and voting privilege very seriously, and as a poor man trying to provide for his ever-expanding family he sought some kind of ray of hope, of financial stability on the horizon.  He was, of course, devoted to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Grandpa  taught his children: Democrats care about the common man while Republicans care about money.  Simple response from a not-so-simple man living in desperately hard times.  I don’t know if he ever perceived how the two governing concepts go hand in hand.

So the old Depression-era distinction or belief in the two parties continued until the 1960s, when if you can believe it, people down South switched party affiliations like … hmm, like it was the end of the world.  The switcheroo had to do with the Civil Rights movement and the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.  Southern Democrats were gonna have to support African Americans, simple as that.  Instead many white Democrats ran lickety-split to the Republicans, whose political agenda never promoted the advancement of people of color.

Then there was the hippy factor and the Vietnam War, separating American voters into hawks and doves.  Doves just wanted to make love not war; hawks were ready to fight for any reason anywhere—something like that.  Then American politics got really ugly in the ’70s with radical Democrats, college youth completely dissatisfied with the status quo by the Man.  To be a Democrat in those days implied one may support violent protests at home to end the war overseas.  A generation gap evolved with Democrats usually younger voters and Republicans their parents.

Ready for his close up

Enter Ronald Reagan, the law-and-order governor of Hippie California.  Americans generally forgot he used to be a Democrat before switching to the GOP.  Why?  It’s no mystery but one that needs reviewing.  His wealth increased and so did his tax rate.  He no longer believed that government could and should solve all the country’s problems.  He believed government was the problem.  Many Democrats, former liberals who at the time were parents of the Mini Boom, agreed.  They were called Reagan Democrats.

So we’re back to the two-pronged philosophy of our country divided by Democrats and Republicans.  Clinton’s presidency brought together the parties.  His style was called Business Democrats, AKA New Democrats, and he was quite adept at using tax revenue to build and create new business especially in neglected communities.  Did I mention he is credited for balancing the federal budget and erasing the deficit to $0?  That feat was not mere luck but phenomenal economic foresight.

Money is the root

A government teacher taught the difference between Democrats and Republicans by quipping: Republicans see a cockroach and call an exterminator while Democrats see one and stomp it with a shoe.  Democrats keep their curtains open when they shouldn’t while Republicans, though unnecessary, keep their curtains closed.  Shtick was his way to answer the age-old American question, “What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?”

I think the answer is similar to the difference between Missionary and Southern Baptists.  It’s about where the money goes based on the priorities of the organization.  Republicans believe, in the paraphrased adage of President Cal Coolidge, the business of America is business.  Business has to be good for the little guy to prosper, for anyone to prosper.  A fair point.  Democrats believe government should help the little guy when he cannot take care of himself through employment, education, food and healthcare.  An altruistic notion.

So now, how have the two long-standing American political Parties come to blows, like sending mail bombs to big-name Democrats, over how the money’s spent?  What the hell?  Some say the animosity came from the Democrats doing in President Richard Nixon.  Others say the hatred seeped in when Republican political know-it-all Newt Gingrich created a list of adjectives to use whenever speaking about Democratic opponents.  Such words that would eventually be tied to all Democrats include: liberal, sick, pathetic, weak, corrupt, destructive, intolerant, insensitive, radical, traitors, self-serving, selfish, incompetent.  Hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute!  Don’t all these words describe some Republican leaders, too, or anybody for that matter?  Goodness gracious.

That list of adjectives cleverly devised to stick it to Democrats along with the modern internet age of fast-paced political arguments have escalated the so-called major differences between political Parties to a deadly battle of sorts, still without declaring civil war … yet … again.

Straight-jacket politics

Back to the original subject, the straight-party ticket may not be the smartest way to vote especially in the Information Age when voters really should look up any candidate and read about him or her and decide for ourselves who we like or trust.  But the straight-party ticket obviously has been used in recent national elections as a protest vote, one that clearly tells the other Party in charge: “I can no longer sit back and let your side ruin the country, in my humble opinion as an American citizen, taxpayer and voter.”  The straight-party vote was more or less a ‘fed-up’ and ‘throw-the-bums out’ maneuver … one that a sore-head Party decided to take away from all of us.  The straight-party vote was just too overwhelming and powerful and maybe primarily used by Democrats.

Some say all the other states do not allow a straight-party line on their election ballots, so Texas should follow suit.  Why I never thought I’d live to see the day Texas would want to be like all the other states in the Union.  Our elected officials in Austin may say this is for our own good, like making a kid drink milk, that using our brains to make a decision as crucial as voting for the right Don Yarborough is literally life or death.  It’s life and death all right, of expanding political thought, social movement and cultural change.  But hey, we’re all Americans.  Democrats and Republicans have too much in common to want to kill the other side.  Right?

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God bless immigrants … because America doesn’t want to anymore

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

the wretched refuse of your teeming shores.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

Whack!  Off with her head!!  Seems Der Spiegel over in Germany was right all along about President Donald Trump.  Right after the 2016 election, the European news journal ran a cover cartoon depiction of Trump: holding in one hand a bloody sword while the other held up the bleeding head of the Statue of Liberty.  The revolting editorial cartoon, in color for the macabre, was supposed to be political satire based on Trump’s agenda if and when elected U.S. president.  His first order of business was to stop immigration (soft-pedaled as illegal immigration).  The Statue of Liberty has long been a world renowned symbol of America’s embrace of immigrants regardless of nationality, race, ethnicity or religion.

And now President Trump’s plan to halt immigration, specifically of Latin Americans, is coming to fruition right after the 2018 midterm election.  He and he alone ordered the U.S. military to protect the border.  There are two conflicts with the presidential order.  One is illegal immigration, already handled by federal border patrol agents.  Then there is the issue of asylum.

Any former American school student must find it hard to believe the United States will no longer provide asylum to Latin American refugees, whether they walked a thousand miles in a massive crowd or crossed the border as a family with children.  Border patrol agents know what to do when catching and apprehending anyone illegally crossing the border.  If individuals claim asylum, they are allowed temporary entrance into the U.S. but must wait for federal immigration courts to hear their plea, often just the immigrant’s word based on personal experience without documentation such as photos and cell phone videos of rapes and gang shootings or recorded threats against their lives.  The Hondurans heading north reportedly to America have claimed their lives are in danger, meaning they would certainly be tortured and/or killed if they remained in their homeland … which is where they’d rather live, don’t you think?

Home is where the heart is

Political and religious asylum has been a human right long recognized and respected by the U.S. probably because ours is a nation of immigrants, people whose lineage is not originally from this part of the world.  The majority of us can check our family history online nowadays and find when our roots were firmly planted in the soil of America, once called the New World by Europeans of the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras.

In the digital age of the 21st century, the power in charge says Americans have had enough of foreigners migrating to our shores.  Why do they keep coming here when they know Americans will resent and suppress them?  When they know we’ll keep them poor, yell at ’em to speak English, and refuse to get to know them or help in any way other than begrudgingly with our hard-earned tax dollars?  Hmm.  Money is always the initial prejudice.

According to the U.S. budget breakdown, the biggest slice of the pie goes to support the military, then another big chunk goes to Medicare (the elderly who paid into it during their working years), and so on until finally a tiny sliver is left to assist legal immigrants with low-income housing, some foodstuffs, very basic healthcare (Medicaid) and enforced public schooling.

The poem at the foot of the Statue of Liberty had it right all along: Most immigrants who come to this country—like most of our ancestors—are poor not rich, hardly living a life of privilege off U.S. taxpayers.  And immigrants stay poor for at least one generation.  Most immigrants to this country are good conscientious people, folks just wanting to survive and yes prosper, actually begging for what they believed was a natural God-given human right to be free from persecution.  They are willing to do anything, work any job, accept the lowest wage, reside in high-crime areas, put up with taunts and jeers coming from the top of our political power structure and supported wholeheartedly by the loudest of Americans—people who’ve forgotten their heritage, their family’s journey not all that long ago.  What a shame.

To be poor and also an immigrant is to be liberal, meaning open minded to other ways of living and thinking.  Right there is the core issue irritating the heart of Americans who do not believe their tax dollars and our nation should support immigrants for any reason whatsoever.  Immigrants, legal or illegal, have never been our country’s Number One problem, likened to an infestation of cockroaches that must be exterminated.

Immigrants to America do not deserve to be kicked in the gut by steel boots and scorned with hateful rhetoric and general meanness.  And if we’re really being honest, immigrants seeking asylum, from homelands dominated by violent crazy narco governments, do not have in their numbers the thousands of native-born American rapists and criminal sociopaths who daily terrorize citizens until stopped by police.  The sociopaths of narco governments remain behind in the countries they dominate.  For life is good, why would they ever leave?

Meanwhile in New York Harbor, modern Americans can tear down the plaque at the foot of Lady Liberty or redact the poetic words once symbolizing the golden purpose of our country’s beautiful and just existence.  But those very words and the profound meaning will not be ignored or forgotten by millions of Americans and neither will our consecrated assurance in the sanctity of humanity.  We’re all just human beings down here, trying to stay alive, walking toward the light of liberty wherever we find it near or far.  Like it or not, we all are equal to each other, maybe not in the eyes of the races but in the eyes of our Creator, the One we each answer to one way or another.

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Americans created communities that hate Jews or know nothing about them

I’ve lived in Texas all my life, and there is a phrase I’ve never ever heard spoken, not by my neighbors in the Dallas suburbs and East Texas or my family from rural Oklahoma.  That phrase is “dirty Jews.”  As I think about it, I never heard anyone in school or church say the word ‘Jew’—and if so only in biblical references and with certain respect such as “Jews are God’s only chosen people” or a reminder “Jews didn’t kill Jesus; the Romans did.”  That is my background.  On the flip side, I can’t say I’ve never heard anything derogatory against blacks, Mexicans and even women but not a word of disrespect or animosity (or even acknowledgement really) about people who happen to be Jewish.

Having lived many decades now, I’ve sadly come to realize there are parts of my own country where hatred against Jews is commonly spoken in jest or contempt by mostly white people in families and communities where emotions are enraged by the thought of a Jew living next door or attending school with their Christian children.

And now after the largest massacre of Jews on U.S. soil, all of us who call ourselves American must never forget the many enclaves throughout our homeland where anti-Jewish sentiment festers and boils.  We must always be aware of those whose family and acquaintances are hostile toward Jews, wishing them dead, insisting they control the mass media, writing and talking online about their hatred of this particular group of people.

I cannot comprehend the world’s perpetual hatred of Jews, of all people, still today given their history and the Holocaust—which did occur and was proudly chronicled and methodically recorded by Germans during Hitler’s reign.  The only anti-Semite acts I recall growing up around Dallas was synagogues vandalized with swastikas, probably the work of teens, wannabe Nazis who more than likely by now have lived long enough to regret what they did.

Faster than the speed of speech

Americans have always wrestled with our constitutional right of free speech.  This is why and how we’ve come to this point in our political and social history: the internet and our insistence to leave uncensored what others say and believe, no matter how offensive, prejudiced and untrue.  Even the American Civil Liberties Union, which members include a number of Jewish people, would support the right of everyone to say whatever he or she wants, short of pranking “Fire!” in a crowded theater.  Therefore, responsible speech was the key to maintaining our free society.

But because of free speech in the Information Age, we’ve created an era of ugliness.  Those white communities throughout our nation, the ones who collectively hate Jews enough to kill them or wish them harm, have discovered a brotherhood of sorts on the internet.  White Nationalist websites are worldwide with memberships growing wildly since the dawn of the internet.  These are sites filled with jokes and sensationalized stories about blacks and every race and ethnicity on the planet, of course including Jews.  After Trump was elected president, our own crop of white Nationalists and neo-Nazis felt they could finally come out in public and proclaim their ideals, chanting in their march on Charlottesville “The Jews will not replace us!!!”

Shocking—to someone like me, raised without ever hearing an unkind sentiment against Jews.  I grew up on ’60s & ’70s TV, watching plenty of comedians comfortably make fun of their Jewish heritage, their people and the stereotypes.  In the privacy of our homes, we laughed because the comedians, actors, singers, writers and shows made us think it was all right to laugh at what was ludicrous.  No harm done because in the heart of TV land, we held no animosity toward Jews as a people or a culture.  We were entertained, never seeing a hint of sadness in those who made us smile.  We had nothing to fear from each other, audience and entertainer.

Too, we were horrified when watching movies about real-life stories during the Holocaust, of degradation and for a few survival.  We cried at depictions of a stark reality, what European Jews had to go through during Hitler’s reign.  We wept because of our shared humanity, never for a moment thinking deep resentment and hatred toward these people still exists, not all these years after the last world war.

Like the Nazis, white Nationalists are more often Christian than atheist, surely celebrating Christmas and Easter especially if they have children.  That is most incomprehensible: Christians hating Jews.  The Jews would tell us the hatred started long ago, an animosity, a tribal fear, a social and cultural jealousy that goes back in time thousands of years, way before Christ.  Jewish history is not the history of everyone else.  That is because many communities would not allow Jews as residents.  Then television and movies brought Jews right into our homes, like virtual neighbors.  Turns out, Jewish people, whether through humor or historical fact, can teach the rest of us quite a lot: about spiritual faith, common decency, empathy, justice, assimilation, wisdom, humor, cooperation, communication, and acceptance of those who hate them … and always will.

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Bill & Hillary’s excellent adventure: a national speaking tour on their worn-out brand

Here’s how President Bill & Hillary Clinton’s speaking tour will go down: Democrats with money and power will purchase lots of tickets then give them to various employees and others who will then pass the tickets off to family and anybody before stashing them in coat pockets and desk drawers to be forgotten.  But the Clintons will get paid regardless.

If they were divorced, the Clintons’ speaking tour would be much more interesting.  Instead, it’ll be the same ol’ stories by the same ol’ couple that America has gotten to know all too well.  What could this former ‘power couple’ possibly share with the American people that might uplift our spirits, especially the Democrats let down by Hillary’s inability to win the presidency when her contender was Donald Trump?  Remember how everyone in the world was surprised she did not win and he became President of the United States?

After losing the election, Hillary remained reclusive to pout and sulk.  But during that time, America changed.  For one, there’s the Me Too movement.  Many still think President Clinton is or was a rapist, not just a playboy and skirt-chasing cad.  All agree, including ol’ Bill himself, that he’s been a sex addict, a perpetual womanizer, a dirty dog.  A lot of women never forgave Hillary for not divorcing her husband when the Monica Lewinsky affair went public, which would lead to President Clinton’s impeachment.  During the most public crisis of their marriage, Hillary stood by her man—and as she’s tried to explain to us, too, stood by her president.  She’s one helluva woman … or wants us to believe that about her.

Haven’t the Clintons lived in separate houses in different towns and different states?  Maybe that’s the secret to their long enduring marriage!  But make no mistake, what they want to tell us will be totally scripted and nothing candid so that we and history might get a little insight into the way they really are as husband and wife.  That’s what we care about more than their politics.  And the Clintons can talk politics till the cows come home.

Yesterday …

Before Hillary ran for president in 2008 and again in 2016, she was voted one of the Most Admired Women in the World every year, always landing in the top spots right up there with Beyonce.  That’s saying a lot especially with the young women of the world who voted in that poll.  Hillary was respected more internationally than nationally.

Maybe the Clintons, the most recognized elders of the Baby Boomers, think they can reignite the idealism that marked their generation.  Then again, a lot of Democrats voted for Trump, thinking “Anyone but Hillary.”  And a lot of Republicans voted for Hillary, thinking “Anyone but Trump.”  To many Americans, the 2016 election indeed was a choice between the lesser of two evils.

All this talk about Hillary as evil doesn’t make sense.  She didn’t divorce her husband even for blatant infidelity, which should have scored her major points among the religious.  But her decision to remain married, to Bill, backfired.  Maybe conservatives suspected another motive for Hillary sticking with Bill, perhaps thinking she was simply power hungry.

What’s so funny, and I mean strange, about the Clintons is how they were friends with the Trumps.  There is a famous photo of the two couples: the Clintons standing beside Trump and his new wife Melania at their star-studded wedding.  The four of them appear the best of friends, people who understand each other, travel in the same social circles and at the time the same political sphere.  During the impeachment, Trump was quick to take up for Clinton, maintaining the president was getting a raw deal—all that right-wing political furor, public time and tax money over an affair.  Trump had been a lifelong Democrat until he eyed the presidency, first running as an Independent then winning as a Republican and now chastising Democrats for all the evil in the world.

Strange bedfellows

The funny strange thing about the Clintons is how similar they are to Trump: sharing the same narcissism, relishing in the spotlight, insisting on national attention.  Their crowds for sure will not be as loud and riotous as Trump rallies.  Theirs is a softer touch.  When speaking publicly, Hillary appeals more to the intellect than the emotions, often appearing stoic and guarded with little sense of humor no matter how much she broadly smiles and laughs out loud.  She doesn’t appear naturally carefree—not like she was in her pre-Bill days when Hillary Rodham sans makeup and coiffed hair was a standout career woman, an intense person of quiet character and meaningful purpose in work that would benefit the disenfranchised.

But when Bill Clinton speaks, people listen.  We used to.  He had warmth, charisma, a way with words and phrases, an ability to speak more from the heart than the head yet managed to marry both qualities that make us human.  Northerners called it Southern charm.  Southerners just liked him from the start because he was genuinely one of us, even from a small town in Arkansas.

Bill can laugh at himself and his many foibles.  Hillary can laugh at herself, too, yet the general public still does not believe her self-deprecation as part of her natural personality.  She comes across as insincere, again the power-hungry persona that many Americans swear they sense from her, not knowing her personally as most of us don’t.

By those who know him best, Bill has been called a genius.  And you know what they say about geniuses: how they lack horse sense?  Isn’t it funny how life bestows upon a very few high intelligence that seems wasted in the very ways that matter to regular folks, people whose priorities are: God first then marriage, children, family, work and community.  The strange coupling of the Clintons is how their personal values did not center on home and hearth or fidelity or for that matter the humble American character that makes us serve humanity first and place ourselves last.

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Women of America unite: You’re still missing the true fight

The hotly divisive nomination of newly confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court was not so much about boorish adolescent behavior in high school and even college.  The arguments were about females who claim sexual assault, especially decades after an attack, still just an allegation.  Who should believe her?  When Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey Ford was a young teen-ager, the question would have been who would believe her, which is why she never spoke a word all these many years … until the very guy she swears long ago jumped her, groped and forcefully stopped her cries for help was a serious contender for the highest court in the land.  Hearing her story, the entire nation split into two jagged sides, mostly along women against men though there were women who supported the handsome candidate and faithful family man now raising two girls.

We as a nation had to bear witness to the once timid teen of long ago publicly tell her side of the story to an almost all-male Congress and millions of Americans via cable news.  Then Judge Kavanaugh aired his rebuttal.  Both choked back tears of emotion recalling their separate recollections: hers that the teen-age attacker was definitely Brett Kavanaugh, his that he has never attacked any female his entire life, punch-drunk or sober—though he conceded to loving beer.  ?  What kind of ‘Trumped’ up hearing was that?  Every word then-Judge Kavanaugh read from his oral argument sounded as if penned by the President himself.

We realized Republicans were easy to agree there was no proof of a sexual assault—and there never will be.  So brilliant and cunning are sexual assaults, not so much rape nowadays with the DNA.  But many women believed Dr. Ford’s testimony because they have experienced similar horseplay when they were young, immature and naïve, never in a million years thinking an adolescent boy would jump her or cop a feel or snap her bra or cup her breast.  Every sexist excuse I thought died with the 1970s came flying out of the mouths from those who wholeheartedly supported Justice Kavanaugh: Boys will be boys; the guys probably thought the girl would like the attention; she named the wrong guy; she looked like she wanted it; she shouldn’t have been hanging out with older teens with booze and no adults; she was wearing a bathing suit; and my personal favorite: women are essentially pure evil and are notorious for making up lies against men just to get them in big trouble and destroy their lives forever.

Yeah, right

On behalf of all women around the world, let me assure: the number of vindictive conniving women who would go through the time and trouble to concoct a lie of sexual assault against a man is nowhere near the number of men who sexually assault women and girls every single day … and get away with it.  This sobering fact was intentionally lost in the smokescreen of a salacious he said/she said American moment.  Americans should never forget our own national statistic: 1 in 4 girls are victims of sexual assault.  And with most girls frightened into never telling a soul, the statistic reasonably could be 1 in 2 is a victim of sexual assault … by males.

And to my fellow sisters understandably up in arms over sexual assault and the general public’s initial disbelief of the ‘unmentionable’ that spotlights the accuser more than the accused—well, my dears, there is a much bigger issue to rage against perpetual sexism.  Instead of taking to the streets to protest Justice Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, they should have been using their time and effort to protest the lingering situation worthy of national scrutiny: Why the hell aren’t there more women on our nation’s Supreme Court by now?  Women make up a slight majority of the population, five million more of us than men.  In representing all the people fairly, the U.S. Supreme Court should reflect our nation’s true demographics by gender, race and ethnicity, instead of carrying on like white males dominate the national landscape.  They don’t.

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A good friendship cut short by juvenile diabetes

Recently I dreamed about my good friend Jean.  That’s the only way I get to visit with her now.  She died a few years ago.  As a young adult, she had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, having to inject herself in the abdomen every morning.  One time I naively watched, only then realizing the severity of her condition.  Diabetes is deadly serious, the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. with more than 250,000 deaths annually.  By the time Jean was 60, she had experienced every single one of the health battles brought on by this disease.

She didn’t deserve it.  She was tall and slender, naturally tan with shining green cat eyes and a wide smile, outgoing with lots of friends, a member of local film societies and astronomy clubs.  Her most distinctive feature was her raspy voice, the sexy tone of a long-time smoker.  Jean was happiest when smoking a cigarette.  I never warned her about smoking, how doctors say it makes diabetes even worse.  I figured she knew all about diabetes and the risks.  Smoking seemed her greatest pleasure in life, and I was not about to hound her, because I cherished our friendship.

Jean was a few years older than me.  We met at a party.  She and I had similar interests and enjoyed each other’s company.  We started a girls’ night of sorts: exploring new restaurants, seeing movies and shows, or just visiting over the phone.  We liked foreign films and art flicks and Baby Boomer rock.  She was very professional, a paralegal who took her work and appearance seriously.  I was just learning how to create a career in journalism and later education.  She would review my resume, part of her duties while seeking employees for law firms, and over a cigarette advise me wisely.

She became someone I could tell my troubles to such as dating, getting along with co-workers and dealing with assorted bosses.  She was like an older sister.  We went through a bout of unemployment.  That’s probably when we spent the most time together, just visiting, cooking meals for each other, and going to the dollar cinema to pretend we were part of the working masses.  Jean was a feminist, one of those who graduated in the early 1970s.  She was of an era I admired, and she was better versed than I on subjects like women’s rights.  She could sniff out sexism when I still gave men the benefit of the doubt.

Things my best friend taught me:

Tip restaurant servers at least 20 percent, more for excellent service; wear hats to get attention from men; always use table clothes and real linen napkins; buy flowers and split them into bouquets throughout the house; when driving, try to get off the highways as soon as possible because it’s safer.

After yet another unemployment streak as a paralegal, Jean had to move from Texas to Florida and was finally doing well for awhile.  She lived within walking distance of the beach, something she missed while living in north Texas.  She grew up in Delaware and talked about clambakes and fish boils right on the beach.  She loved lighthouses, too, so one Christmas I bought her a picture calendar of assorted ones, each similar yet unique, just like us.  Jean bought a nice three-bedroom Florida home complete with a lanai, a patio and swimming pool area enclosed in a sheer netting to keep bugs out.  A couple times a year, we’d call each other.  While listening to her adventures and then advice to improve my life mostly at work, I was soothed by the background sound of rolling waves from the nearby coast.

One summer I flew out for a visit.  She took me to her astronomy club late at night in the Florida Everglades.  There was no light, but the sky was filled with millions of stars.  Her colleagues used high-powered telescopes and showed me different planets.  In the near distance was the sound of a creature I’d never heard.  I described the mooing as a satanic cow.  The Floridians laughed, telling me it was an alligator or crocodile.  Both live in the swamps where we stood.

To have juvenile diabetes, Jean lived pretty well, taking insulin regularly, and had a great big appetite.  She could eat anything and not gain a pound.  She kept hard candies in her car just in case of an insulin spike.  If we were at a late-night bar, she always ordered an Irish coffee “without the whiskey.”  She was cautious with alcohol, telling me about a time when she was younger and had been drinking with friends and took a cab home.  The driver detected she was drunk and walked her to her house then forced his way in and attacked her.  Nothing happened as she screamed until he left.  She took the incident as a wake-up call to improve and never leave herself vulnerable like that again.

She reduced smoking to a few cigarettes a day but not entirely quitting cold turkey.  She was able to live a seemingly healthy life with diabetes during her 30s and 40s.  But after she turned 50, the disease declared an all-out war.  Jean was unemployed again during a Florida recession when diabetes was affecting her eyesight.  As the years passed, with each phone call I realized diabetes was taking a toll on her health.  She had to undergo eye surgery and doctor visits that involved a needle in the eyes, all due to diabetes.  The procedures were not successfully restoring her vision.  And at some point, she knew she would never be employed again.  Because her situation was dire, I advised her to sell the house and move in with her mother in Delaware.  A year later, that is what she had to do.

So I started calling her every now and then in Delaware.  Again, Jean’s prognosis was not good.  Soon she was undergoing dialysis due to kidney failure and was placed on a list for a kidney and heart transplant.  She lost her sight and though she was living in her childhood home, one day she walked into something she didn’t see on the floor, and the fall broke her hip.  She had to be moved into a convalescent center.  I’m sure that was the lowest moment of her life.  I realized I needed to plan a trip to see her.

A Yankee-Rebel friendship

I flew up to Delaware, met Jean’s mom, noticing the matching light green eyes of the two women.  Jean, smiling merrily, had to use a walker to get around.  I don’t think she could see me.  We had made all kinds of plans, like spending the night at my hotel (where she needed to know where she could smoke since it wasn’t permitted in the rooms) and taking the Amtrak the next day to Philadelphia.  I was leery this plan, that reinvigorated her so much, may fall through.  Sure enough, she called late night to cancel, explaining she was going to the hospital  about her leg.  A side effect of dialysis, Jean had gained water weight in her calves, and one kinda erupted with fluid and needed medical attention.  I toured Philly alone.

The next day Jean was able to take me to Amish Country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  I did not realize I would be driving.  She arranged for a rental car, and we three women drove out there, Jean sitting in the back sipping on a soda as her elderly mother guided me from the front passenger side.  Whenever we stopped for a break, Jean mysteriously left.  Her mother knew what she was doing.  She’d spot Jean sitting outside having a smoke and scold her daughter harshly.  I played it down, trying to persuade her mother to consider the big picture, though never saying aloud, “Jean’s dying.  Let her enjoy her life.”

On our final day together, Jean wanted me to drive her around her hometown, a historic locale settled off the Delaware River in the 18th century.  She had me drive her to row houses in what seemed a rough area.  She asked what I thought about her moving into one, to have her own place again.  She was determined she’d get to work again once her health improved.  Despite declining health, Jean never lost her vitality and spirit to work for a living.  She was able to get both Medicare and Medicaid, thanks to lawyers who knew how to fight the system on her behalf.  Jean was blind, on dialysis and a transplant list.  Why would our government give someone like that a hard time?  Jean went to dialysis three times a week—and the ordeal took the entire day, leaving her exhausted and needing to recuperate the following day.

During our visit, I gave Jean a unique piece of jewelry I had bought for myself.  It was a replica charm bracelet from the British royal family featuring a half dozen or more gold crosses, each with a different faux jewel: ruby, diamond, emerald, sapphire.  On the back of each cross were engraved Biblical passages.  Jean loved it and wore it to all her dialysis treatments as a conversation piece.  I wanted it to make her feel beautiful and loved.  When it was time for me to leave, Jean was chatting about nothing important while looking away from my direction.  I hugged her and choked back tears to say, “You’ve been a really good friend, Jean, my best friend in life.”  Jean, in her raspy voice, smiled and replied sheepishly, “Ahhhh!  You’re my buddy!  We had all sorts of fun together.”  Her mother stood by, quietly witnessing two friends saying goodbye forever.

Months later I called.  This time Jean told me one of her legs had been amputated.  Trying to keep the conversation upbeat, I asked about her artificial limb, how’s she doing learning to walk again.  I didn’t mean for that to be our last conversation.  But calling her time and again was so heartbreaking.  I waited a year later … then called one night around Christmas.  Her mother did not remember me and sounded suspicious when I asked to speak to Jean.  I recounted my trip to Delaware and how Jean had been my friend in Texas for a long time.  Her mother finally told me Jean had passed away a few months ago.  Tears welled for a brief moment.  I was surprised but not really.  Jean, her mother explained, had been in the hospital with pneumonia and with all the other complications, her body gave out.  She died on her birthday.  Jean told me she thought people who died on their birth dates were special, that that was something so unique it must have some kind of cosmic connection.

Always practical when it came to legal matters, Jean assured me her final arrangements had been made including who to notify and that I was at the top of the list.  But I was not called, and to this day I wonder about that.  I quickly looked up her obituary online, finding it scant in details about her wonderful life and vivacious spirit, even brave battle with diabetes.  Instead of flowers, mourners were requested to donate to her mother’s church.  Jean was not religious.  The only perfect thing about her brief obit was the picture, a close up of her with an ocean in the background.  She’s clasping a glass of red wine while a big smile captures her joie de vivre.

Oh, if Jean were alive today!  What she would say about our latest president.  We would never stop laughing.  Shared politics was perhaps our strongest bond.  She once told me I was one of the very few liberals she had met in Texas.  Perhaps she felt out of place.  But she made the most of living in the Lone Star State, even hanging out with Texas legend Kinky Friedman, a highlight of her life.  Jean and I shared cultural, political and even spiritual views.  No wonder we enjoyed talking to each other.  In fact, Jean would be so proud of me creating a blog called The Texas Tart.  I imagine she reads every one wherever she is now.  In the dream, I told her I was going to write one about her (silently realizing I’d have to address her struggle with diabetes).  She beamed excitedly and told me, “That’s a great idea!”

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Leave it to Communist China to eradicate Muslim terrorism

Have you heard what China is doing to a minority Muslim population?  From the sound of it, they’re ‘nipping in the bud’ religious terrorist attacks, schemes, plans and thoughts.  The Communist government is attacking this murderous global problem by special indoctrination camps for certain undesirables, like Orwell’s 1984 and Hitler’s Nazi Germany.  The goal is to destroy the Muslim’s belief in not only Islam but any religion.  Of this goal, Communist China will no doubt be 100 percent effective.  What’s the other option for Muslims practicing their faith in China: death?

According to several recent news reports, a million members of a Muslim minority called the Uyghurs (pronounced ‘wee-gers’), who have traditionally lived near the Mongolian border, have been rounded up and forced to reside in camps.  There they will undergo forced assimilation which no doubt will include learning to appreciate the social equality and efficiency of communism while also destroying one’s intellectual, emotional and spiritual bond to religion such as belief in God or Allah.  Remaining Uyghurs not yet forced into camps must welcome Communist Party workers into their homes for inspections.  The Uyghur community maintains every family now has at least one member in the indoctrination camps.

The Uyghur minority is objecting to this mass humiliation as a violation of their human rights.  They claim they are not ethnically Chinese, and their land was not part of China until invasion and annexation in the mid 20th century.  Uyghurs have been discriminated against as workers unless they prove to be devout followers of Chinese communism and enthusiastic members of the Party.

Center of the world

Renowned for audaciously ruthless global business ventures, from mining Africa to building islands in the international waters of the South China Sea, China has patiently watched as the U.S. and other nations ineffectively deal with terrorism in their own countries.  Along with sporadic violence instigated by Al-Qaeda and ISIS, China diligently observed two decades of perpetual war in the Middle East which has left hundreds of millions dead and wounded.  For its role in leading the Middle East war on terrorism, the United States owes China more than $1 trillion.

China has had its share of Muslim terrorist attacks within its borders.  But when it comes to China, communism is going to defeat any other way of life.  Their brand of communism includes torture, mind control and death.  China’s Cultural War of the 1940s began by rounding up all teachers and the educated who were summarily slaughtered and culminated in forcing Buddhist monks and nuns to copulate in public.  China is not like the United States and Western Europe, both unwilling to violate human rights even in war.  China does not adhere to or believe in a human being’s inalienable rights of freedom, free speech, free press, or individual pursuits of happiness.  That is the way communism remains in China; it dominates any citizen’s thought to the contrary.  As for religion, God, spiritual beliefs: that will be crushed if detected in the human brain of a fellow countryman.

In the 1980s, China permitted Western influence and culture, even Christianity, but college students began protesting, wanting total freedom not just a taste.  Then in 1989 China’s military massacred an estimated 10,000 protesters in Tiananmen Square.  Life soon was restored to normalcy and faithful communism with a sustaining vengeance.  China’s communism is like a plague that destroys all mankind or like an alien invasion of humanity as quietly as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”  Creepy, how Communist China has yet to fall like Eastern Europe and the USSR.  Makes you wonder what they are holding onto.  The answer is supreme, glorious, indestructible power.

With a population of one billion, modern China is bustling with a generation far wealthier than Chairman Mao would have preferred.  After all, communism is supposed to be ‘all for one and one for all,’ meaning everyone receives the same earnings from a government stipend regardless of occupation.  Money, or the love of it, ultimately will change the hearts and minds of the Chinese.  Communism pretends to hate capitalism and free enterprise, but no one earns money better than China, mostly on the backs of a slave workforce.

So now China joins the rest of the world in dealing with global terrorism stemming from radicalized Muslim communities and individuals.  Throughout the 21st century, China has watched war-weary Americans and other international soldiers return to their homelands—presumably demoralized; with some blind, deaf, amputated, emasculated.  The beauty of Communist China is it will once and for all defeat the global enemy of terrorism in as much as it relates to religion.  A quick online look at the extremely fit and insurmountable Chinese soldiers, marching goose step in precision along their nation’s latest artillery and killing machines, one foresees extreme victory and rather soon.  Communist China is more than willing to pay the price to eradicate Muslim terrorism within a vast expansive territory.  Similar to the terrorists themselves, the Chinese method is simple: obliterate all human rights, especially religious beliefs and practices.  China has shown the world what it takes to install and maintain Godless communism: consummate brutality physically, psychologically and spiritually.

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Planned Parenthood: damned if they do, damned if they don’t

There was a time in America when citizens supported the idea of ‘planned parenthood,’ that individuals can and should determine when and if they have children.  The golden era was during the women’s rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s.  Marching beside the nation’s women all along was Planned Parenthood.  The national organization, formed in 1917, drew controversy upon inception back in the olden days when its main goal was advocating for contraception and providing contraceptives.  But mention Planned Parenthood today and the first thing that comes to mind is America’s most divisive issue: abortion.  And for the umpteenth time, Congressmen are attempting to cut all federal funding of Planned Parenthood, the lone organization that has undoubtedly been the life-saving grace for many a girl and woman, more so for the poor among us.

Because it’s already against the law, Planned Parenthood—the most financially scrutinized not-for-profit in the nation—cannot use federal tax funds for abortion services.  However, The Catholic News reported this year that government funding is the largest source of revenue for Planned Parenthood: $500,000 million annually for an organization that performs more than 300,000 abortions a year.  Another online fact sheet claimed Planned Parenthood’s government funding, including Medicaid and other federal health department reimbursements, makes up 94 percent of its total revenue.  The Washington Post Fact Checker looked into the revenue and services conflict but used figures provided by Planned Parenthood posted on its website: three percent on abortion services, 42 percent on sexually transmitted disease prevention and treatment, 34 percent on contraceptive services, nine percent on cancer screenings, and 11 percent on women’s healthcare.  Each year Planned Parenthood reportedly serves three million people, mostly women and girls but also male adolescents and men.

Planned Parenthood’s total revenue is $1.164 billion, meaning less than half comes from the government, each state also obligated to provide a funding match for Department of Health services like Medicaid.  The organization divided its 2017 revenue figures and sources as:

$543.7 million in revenue, 37 percent from government health services reimbursements and grants;

$267.5 million, 36 percent private contributions;

$318.1 million, 22 percent non-government health services revenue;

$34.3 million, five percent other revenue.

Picture if you will

Many people cannot forget those pictures from inside the womb of fetal development, first shown in the 1960s: wondrous images of tiny bodies, feet, limbs, heads and facial features in mere weeks in human development.  Why, it looked just like a fully formed newborn baby.  When the happy couple discovers they are expecting, the baby is fully formed in their minds and hearts.  That makes miscarriage all the more heartbreaking as well as pregnancy termination for whatever the reason.

Another development that would change the public’s collective mind about abortion was miraculous medical advancements with premies: premature babies born as early as five months, not fully ready for life outside the womb but arriving just the same.  Imagine holding a 16-ounce bottle of water then realizing that was the size of a premature baby who managed to survive and grow outside the womb and today is healthy and normal.  In light of those developments, millions of people who may have once supported abortion started to change their minds, seeing the procedure as unnecessary, immoral, selfish and cruel especially when so many couples are waiting to adopt.

Still Planned Parenthood is not going away and remains strong in its mission, “striving to create the healthiest generation ever.”  The website features a quote from president Cecile Richards: “We are here today to thank generations of organizations, troublemakers, and hell raisers who formed secret sisterhoods, who opened Planned Parenthood health centers in their communities, and demanded the right to control their own bodies.”  That was the issue that led to legalized abortion in the 1970s: females demanding control over their bodies and their lives.  And, too, control over their time, which is very important yet left out of the national feud.  When abortion was legalized, ensuring a safe medical procedure, it was supported by tens of millions of women who knew others had undergone a back-alley abortion or used other means like a wire hanger and were permanently injured, infected or died.  They didn’t want any of that, those gruesome extreme measures that confused young girls will take to end an unwanted pregnancy, to ever happen again—not in this country, not in modern times.

Last year The Kaiser Poll, a conservative organization, reported that 75 percent of Americans still support federal funds to Planned Parenthood while 22 percent support cutting all federal funds to the organization.  The poll also revealed that one in three women and one in four people have visited Planned Parenthood for health services.  Aren’t health services, 97 percent of what Planned Parenthood provides, to ensure a healthy population worth our tax dollars?

In recent decades, terrorism tactics along with screaming protesters outside the doors of Planned Parenthood clinics culminated in closing many facilities and cutting the number of doctors willing to perform abortions, still a legal medical procedure.  How many doctors were murdered because they worked for Planned Parenthood or in their private practice performed pregnancy terminations?  During the 1990s as the abortion issue escalated along with physician harassment and murder, President Bill Clinton maintained his policy would be to ensure abortion was ‘safe, legal and rare.’

But … 300,000 abortions a year isn’t a rare occurrence.  It makes so many Americans very angry to think abortions occur every day; despite the many reasons physical, financial or other; however complex and personal.  As long as federal tax funds are used to provide abortion services, citizens feel they can vehemently object, claiming religious and moral grounds and a violation of the soul, theirs and the unborn as they believe it.  The idea of abortion being a private matter, a personal issue and individual belief, that is nobody’s business but the human female young or old will not be tolerated—not in this country, not in this century.