What would you do?

 

If someone offered you a choice between taking $1,000 or $50,000 as a gift, no strings attached, which would you select?

I imagine the $50,000.

I don't understand why people say the 1,000 people killed October 7th in Israel gave Israel the right to kill 50,000 people who do not have the right to defend themselves. Not just kill but destroy everything in their lives, starve them, destroy their hospitals.

It's amazing that according to Netanyahu they only bomb where Hamas is hiding. 

Growing up, I learned about the Holocaust. I believed Israel had a chance to build a place free from prosecution. Up until the 1967 War, I thought Israel could do no wrong. Okay, I was naive and really hadn't read much about it.

Only when I was student teaching, did I meet my first Palestinian. She talked about how her family had been displaced, the land Israel had stolen from her family, the limitations forced upon them by Israel.

Moving to Geneva in 1993, I had Palestinian neighbors. One woman taught me and other friends belly dancing followed by great meals.

I met more and more people, not just from Palestinian but also from other countries in the region, especially Egypt and Syria. I was lucky enough to have a neighbor that became a sister-of-choice and spent time with her family in Damascus seeing life through the eyes of people who lived daily with the uncertainty of the region.

In the U.S. if you are pro-Palestinian, you are considered anti-semantic and thus anti-Jewish. People forget that almost all of the people in the area are semantic people. 

Taking a country from one people to give to another is a sure way to breed hatred. I imagine that the Gaza children who survive this war, whose parents and siblings were killed, will have little mercy for Israel. Destruction breeds hatred.

The argument the land belonged to Israel historically is equally sick. Country borders move. They are artificial. I wonder what would happen if everyone in the United States that is living on Indian land was suddenly driven from their homes so Indians could have it back.

There was no way that I could be anything but horrified by the genocide of the Jews during World War II. I am also horrified by the genocide in Gaza even if the numbers are smaller. The Oct. 7th attack was terrible by a group that is fighting back against the Israeli oppression.

1,000 against 50,000 is disproportionate. 

Taking hostages inflamed Israel, understandably, but the hundreds of Arab prisoners in Israel who are held without trial and rough conditions again tips the scale on what is disproportionate.

I'm horrified about the illegal settlements, the unfair rules the Arabs lived under that make it almost impossible to have even the base things that we take for granted. 

Destroying a people does not make anyone safer. It creates more hatred.

I am horrified that if Israel does it, they get carte blanche along with weapons from the U.S. to increase their killing ability. I am horrified about how they treat the Arabs in the area, the breaking of international laws. That people fight back, is totally understandable.

When Americans talk to me about Israel having the right to defend themselves and I ask them what they know about the history, it is next to nothing. Gaza has the right to defend itself too.

I wish everyone of them would invited a Palestinian to dinner and listen to their side of the history over the last decades.

Now merely saying you are pro-Palestiniancin the States, especially if you are not a U.S. citizen can get you deported, denying the speaker's freedom of speech. If you invited Palestinians to your home, and under these current U.S. Administration you are leaving them open to  being grabbed and deported even if they did nothing but have ordinary lives. 

So $1,000 or $50,000...what will it be? Isn't it time to look at both sides? Invite a Palestinian to your home and listen to what they have to say.

P.S. I am not anti-Jewish, but I am anti the atrocities of the Israeli government.

 

Holding My Own?

 

Rick's parking karma held as he slipped into the last spot in the bibliothèque parking. I looked up to see pretty blue shutters and flowers in a house. The wall is on a house that is probably at least 300 years old. It was more than a pretty window. It was a reminder that not everything in this world is coming apart.

In the center of our French village, the houses, including ours, are 300-400 years old. The ground floors used to hold goats, cows and chickens, but are now modern living and dining rooms and kitchens. The streets are narrow and parking is non-existent which is why we search public parking. 

I've been fighting with myself against frustration and depression about the destruction of my birth country by incompetent, demented, immoral people. There are people too afraid to fight back, or too greedy to do what is right. I feel anger too at the people who voted them in, for not seeing what was there if they'd just taken the time to look.

In our village, we find many French who want to talk about Trump, usually with disgust. Canadians, Danes, Swedes, Germans, Brits ask us if we are relieved that we are no longer American. They were anti-Trump during his first administration. Now they express shock that America could sink so low so fast.

This tiny village has a long history of pain from bad rulers. It was territory that went back and forth between French, Spanish and Catalan aristocracy over the centuries. Towers still sit on mountain tops to help who ever was in power to see the latest invasion. 

Power struggles aren't new. Fighting against them isn't new.

In 1939 the 3000+ village residents became 103,000 as people crossed the Pryenees, fleeing Franco. These refugees were put in concentration camps along the beach. The bad treatment of refugees and immigrants is not new.

The village did not submit easily. Women protested in April 1942. An elderly man, who lived through it, told me how there were resistance fighters living in the village. He lived on the renamed rue de Resistance.

We tried going off grid to restoke our morale, but when we're on our computer information about evil acts of the administration sneak in. Then we give in and check news in France, England, Switzerland, U.S. and sometimes Germany. We see old and new frightening stories. I will look at Fox News on the internet and see a totally different world to what other news sources are reporting adding to my pain, fear, frustration at the lies and manipulation.

I am trying to hold on to hope for sanity, by hanging on to what is good in my little village: our friends, local and international, the wonderful fruits and vegetables, our pup, the smell of bread baking from the boulangeries, the cafés where we can sit and people watch, chatting with those walking by. There is the surprise of a beautiful window when we lucked out by finding a parking place. It helps, but it is not enough.

Hopefully, the village, the U.S., the world will survive the maniacs in D.C. and those enabling them, just as this village has survived everything over the centuries and too many battles to list here.  

I wish I could do more. Making phone calls, sending emails and writing essays isn't enough. On April 5, I wish I could be on Boston Common, in front of the State House where my grandfather did engineering repairs in the early 1900s. 

Can the people who failed to see the danger before November 5 see it now and act?

Will Republicans develop backbones and stop bleating their approval?

Will the many Americans who will suffer, and suffer they will even more than now, fight back?

Will the Army refuse to fight if America attacks other countries Putin-like? 

Meanwhile I will try and channel my pain, frustration, disgust, fear of what the U.S. is becoming.  

Those shutters are a lovely jade of blue. The flowers mean spring is coming. My dog wants to sit on my lap. The weeks of rain seems to have stopped lessening the drought. 

Hang on, hang on, hang on. 

Like all bad governments, rulers, things will change. Don't think about the price in lives ruined, think of the shutters which are a lovely shade of...

Check out D-L's website: https://dlnelsonwriter.com

 

 

 

My Russian Slippers

My Russian slippers are beginning to wear out. After 10+ years of wear, that's not a surprise. The blue mark comes from dropping my fountain pen on one of them.

They were given to me when I visited a Russian friend in St. Petersburg, something I had never thought I'd do. Like many of my friends, her family substituted slippers for shoes in the house. As a good hostess, she'd bought slippers for Rick and me.

Our friendship had started in Geneva on a beautiful day with a not too warm, not too cold day, a blue sky as a backdrop to Mont Blanc's snow tops, much too beautiful to take a bus. I was walking to the train station through the UN complex of alphabet agencies when a woman asked directions to the train station.

She was a Russian attending a conference. Her English was as good, if not better than mine. We walked together chatting the entire way. At the station she was to take a train and I had errands. We exchanged emails.

We began a correspondence and found a lot in common: one child each, a lover of reading literature and history, food. She invited me to St. Petersburg, which I delayed. A few years went by. After I married, she invited my husband and me to visit.

We applied for VISAs. Interesting that his as an American was about $125. Mine as a Swiss, was charged at about $25.

She met us at the St. Petersburg airport. We stayed in her flat meeting her son, husband and cats.

The woman was determined to share the city she loved and had an itinerary that included churches, famous building, museums, the incredible subway, a river ride, a classical ballet and an evening of folk dancing and a boat trip on the river. Some meals we had at home including a wonderful cucumber salad. She gave me the recipe, some meals were at restaurants. We didn't eat at the McDonald's.

We began to understand the Russian letters.  

I've never seen so much gold leaf and beautiful art work from small icons to huge statues. My friend, who knew history, gave me enough background that had I recorded it, I could have given professional tours to tourists. 

 

The metro stations were works of arts in themselves.

She took me to a book store, where my first novel Chickpea Lover: Not a Cookbook was for sale. After the Russian Cosmopolitan had given it a good review it had been on the best seller list for a week or so I was told.

Her knowledge of Russian history was a gift. One of the thrills of the trip was to see the room where Rasputin was fed cyanide. We stood by the door where he escaped to jump in the Neva river. It is one thing to read about history, but another to stand where it happened.

Seeing where Fydor Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov was thrill. As a writer I like to be where books were written as if their talent vibes in the wall will fill my brain and nerves to my fingertips.

Because we were with a native, we had experiences that would never have happened otherwise.

After the ballet, our hostess did not like the look of the taxi drivers. "Wait here," she said.

She ran into the street and pulled a driver, a stranger over then waved for us to get in the car. She had negotiated a price with him to take us home. I tried to imagine doing that in Boston, Geneva or any other major city. I couldn't imagine it in our little French village either.

My life amazes me sometime. I bumble into things that end up giving me incredible experiences.  

Dusty pink is my favorite color. The slippers trim is dusty pink. No matter what the color is, I put them on and walk with memories.

 

 

 

Uncle Sam Needs You

Uncle Sam doesn't just want you, he needs you to save the country from the current destruction being forced on the United States by Trump, Musk and the scared and/or immoral or amoral Republicans.

 

According to one survey, only 13% of Americans who did not vote in the last presidential election like what is happening. Had the other 87% who didn't vote and disapprove of what is happening, the United States, the world and their economies would not be in the mess they are in.

 

What can you do? Fight back within your means of time, health and energy. 

 

How? Where do you go?

 

On April 5th, there are massive rallies planned across the country via a coalition of 83 organizations. This includes international labor unions like CWA (https://cwa-union.org/) and SEIU (www.seiu.org), as well as progressive groups like MoveOn (https://front.moveon.org), Indivisible (https://indivisible.org/groups), and DemCast (https://demcast.com). The event, billed as “Hands Off!” currently has a list of 514 actions planned.

 

DEMONSTRATIONS

 

April 5 - Hands Off demonstrations are planned in many U.S. Cities supported by a large number of organizations some of which include:

• https://theblop.org/ lists many of the protests.
• www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/764476/
• www.womensmarch.com/initiatives/peoples-veto-day-washington-d-c 
• https://portside.org/2025-03-15/why-were-mobilizing-april-5th
• https://earthlaw.substack.com/p/hands-off-march-on-dc-april-5th 
• https://front.moveon.org 
• https://cwa-union.org
  
• https://redwineblue.controlshift.app/events/april-5th-demonstration
• Social Security Works @socialsecurityworks.org
  

GOVERNMENT

 

Start by following every bill in Congress that will hurt people such as changing medicare, social security, food stamps, civil rights. For anything you think is unjust call your senator/congressman. They probably won't be happy to hear from you.

 

SENATORS

https://www.senate.gov

 

Become familiar with the site.

Far left corner under Senators find your Senators.

Call or email and leave a message. That is both Republican and Democrats.

If you want to get word to a Senator in a state where you don't live, find a zipcode from that state and put it into the contact form. 

 

REPRESENTATIVES

https://www.house.gov

 

Far left corner under Representatives find yours

Call or email. 

Use a zip code in their district even if it isn't yours

Check legislative activity (Today's message - There is no legislative activity at this time) 

Look through the site to see what is important. Some committees can be seen live.

Follow bills that can hurt you and other Americans 

If you are not in a Representatives district find a zip code in their district and put that in.

 

TOWN HALLS

Find out which Congressmen and Senators are holding Town Halls.

Go and tell them what you think whether it is your party or not.

 

        ORGANIZATIONS

 

Support organizations on issues that are important to you. It is not possible to support them all, but identify the issues you care about and work with those fighting fort hem. Some organizations fight for several causes. 

 

Below is a list of  many groups that are working to preserve what Trump and Musk are trying to do away with.                                                                                                                 

BOOK BANS

 

UNITE AGAINST BOOK BANS  https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/ 

 

On Monday, April 7, Unite Against Book Bans will ask readers around the country to raise their voices online and in person for the third annual Right to Read Day.

                                                                                                                                           

CIVIL RIGHTS

AMNESTY  www.amnesty.org                                                                                                                   

Amnesty International USA has more than a million members and activists in all 50 states.They work to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

NAACP www.naacp.org 

 

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the longest-serving organization dedicated to fighting for civil rights of people of color.

PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY www.peoplefor.org 

 

People For the American Way is a national progressive advocacy organization that inspires and mobilizes Americans to defend freedom, justice, and democracy from those who threaten to take them away. For more than four decades, they have been dedicated to making the promise of America real and where basic rights and freedoms are upheld for all, not just the wealthy and the powerful. 

GUN SAFETY

EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY  https://everytown.org

They push for common-sense gun control legislation by lobbying lawmakers and fighting against extreme NRA proposals. 

IMMIGRATION

IMMIGRATION IMPACT  https://immigrationimpact.com

A project of the American Immigration Council, this organization lobbies against deportation policy both from the White House and the halls of Congress.

YOUNG CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT CHILDREN'S RIGHTS https://theyoungcenter.org

 An organization focused on protecting the children of immigrants and fighting against deportation and family separation.

LEGAL

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION  https://www.aclu.org

A nonprofit assisting in civil rights legal cases including abortion care, trans people's right to live freely, and people's right to vote. It also hosts the Drag Defense Fund.

AIJUSTICE     www.aijustice.org                                                                                                        

Americans for Immigrant Justice, a nonprofit law firm, fighting for justice for immigrants through a combination of direct representation, impact litigation, advocacy, and outreach.

CAIR  www.cair.com 

Works to educate the public on mainstream Islamic faith and prevent legal obstructions to their rights, including policies proposed and enacted by Trump's first administration.

LAMBDA LEGAL  www.lambdalegal.org

For over 40 years, Lambda Legal has led the way in advocating for the legal rights of HIV-positive and LGBTQ+ people.

SOUTHERN LAW POVERTY CENTER www.splcenter.org

A nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights, fighting to strengthen democracy, counter white supremacy, end mass incarceration, and eradicate racial inequality in the American South.

LGBTQ

 

ADVOCATE www.advocate.com 

 

For those who are able to give, here are 26 groups whose work is going to be critical during a second Trump administration that you can donate to. They say if you can't contribute money, they give a list and other ways to contribute. 

 

GENDERCOOL https://gendercool.org

 

A public outreach campaign made up of "champions" – trans youth who work tirelessly to transform the narrative surrounding them.

GLAAD  www.glaad.org                                                                            

A media monitoring organization focused on inspiring cultural change to ensure fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of LGBTQ+ people.

ORAM  www.oramrefugee.org 

It provides legal assistance, advances economic inclusion through livelihood programs, champions the rights of LGBTIQ asylum seekers and refugees on the global stage and provides critical emergency response to under-served communities.

SHERLOCK'S HOME FOUNDATION https://sherlockshomes.org 

The Sherlock's Homes Foundation provides housing, employment opportunities, and a loving support system, for homeless LGBTQ+ young adults so that they can live fearlessly as their authentic selves.

SYLVIA RIVERA LAW PROJECT https://srlp.org 

SRLP seeks to guarantee people's freedom to self-determine and express their gender identity, fighting for both financial and legal empowerment for everybody across the spectrum of gender.

THE TRANSGENDER LAW CENTER https://transgenderlawcenter.org

The largest national, trans-led organization fights to change law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression.

HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN https://www.hrc.org

 

HRC lobbies for queer rights and candidates, fighting to "ensure that all LGBTQ+ people, and particularly those of us who are trans, people of color and HIV+, are treated as full and equal citizens."

 

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (ABORTION)

ELEVATED ACCESS  www.elevatedaccess.org

A nonprofit dedicated to helping patients receive reproductive health care, offering flights at no cost to those who must travel for abortions.

MIDWEST ACCESS COALITION (MAC)  www.midwestaccesscoalition.org 

An abortion fund helping people traveling to, from, and within the Midwest to access safe and legal abortions.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD https.plannedparenthood.org

 

A nonprofit organization providing reproductive and sexual healthcare and sexual education, including abortions and birth control. 

 

TRAINING

Emily's List  www.emilyslist.org

Trains Democratic women (who are pro-choice) in the basics of running for office, from school board to senator. The group had a hand in getting Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Maggie Hassan elected.

WRITERS 

 PEN https://pen.org

 

PEN America wants to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide, championing the freedom to write. It recognizes the power words to transform the world by uniting writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that making it possible. 

PROPUBLICA  www.propublica.org 

A nonprofit model to produce and disseminate investigative reporting. It has continuously fact-checked the Trump Administration to dispel the misinformation.

Free Write - Imagine

 

Once again two of the writers are in France and one in Switzerland. They write ten minutes on a prompt and then compare what they've written. Two of us took a dark turn. Thank goodness for the third who reminded us of the good things.

The prompt: I can just imagine is from Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread. It was D-L's Free Write. Next up Rick.

D-L's Free Write

Salvah was wet and cold from her hiding place under the red maple leaf pile that Papa had raked yesterday.

Today, rather than bag the leaves, he was at the demonstration at his university. 

When she woke this morning, she could imagine all the wonderful things that would happen on this, her eighth birthday.

Mama took her to the zoo to see the elephants. Salvah loved elephants, but instead of a happy herd like on the videos, there was just one lonely, sad elephant.

Back home, three men had forced their way into the house.

"Run, hide," Mama said.

As she did, she heard one of the men say "Shut up" when Mama asked who they were and why... The rest of the question was stopped by a slap and she heard the word "bitch."

Salvah was used to listening to her parents talk about "home" not this home, where she'd lived from when she was born, but a "home" far away. This home needed a green card, which they had. Salvah was surprized that the card wasn't green but a grayish plastic like Papa's driving license.

Her parents would cry watching the rubble-filed news from "home." They would cry when they learned of their parents' death and Papa's nephew and Mama's sister.

From her hiding place she saw her mother pushed into a car,

It rained harder. She never imagined hiding in a leaf pile. Leaf piles were for jumping in, not hiding.

It grew dark. She snuck into the house to wait for Papa and wait, and wait, and... 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://dlnelsonwriter.com 

Julia's Free Write

Sitting here at my desk and seeing the pouring rain outside leads to reflections of sunny days elsewhere!

Having had to attend weekly religious services in my youth, followed by many a boring conference as I entered the adult world, first I escaped with a book or magazine discreetly tucked in on my lap: thank you Reader’s Digest for allowing me to escape.

As I progressed through life – mostly wonderful – I hit a few road bumps along the way, but it wasn’t until I turned 50 and needed chemotherapy that I realized “I can just imagine.”

Stuck in a chair in a hospital room in the days before better patient management, I realized that I could escape in my mind by just imagining.

Need a PET scan? Just shut your eyes and return to your favorite beach.

Need to stay still for cataract surgery? Just transport yourself to your favorite mountain peak.

Bored during a meeting? Just imagine the lovely buffet to follow.

Feeling down? Just imagine that last family reunion or party with friends.

Just imagining can bring a wealth of positive to the worst of circumstances.

Julia has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/

 Rick's Free Write

I can just imagine being awoken in the middle of the night to the explosions of bombs being dropped on the city where I live.

I can just imagine having to live in underground rail stations or tunnels with no heat or electricity.

I can just imagine queuing up for handouts of bread and water amidst the rubble of our homes and schools and places of worship.

I can just imagine my sons in uniform, marching to the front lines to face an unseen terror of land mines, drones, razor wire and disease.

I can just imagine the elderly dying in a makeshift hospital without modern medical equipment, lying near a young mother in the thralls of birth.

I can just imagine my country’s ‘friends’ turning their back on the plight of my people, leaving us to the mercilessness of their new ‘friends’ – our enemy.

I can just imagine receiving the letter that informs me my eldest has been wounded, my youngest killed, my niece captured and deported, my mother raped…

No, I cannot imagine. Cannot possibly imagine the agony, the fear, the pain, the heartache, the hopelessness…

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com 

 

Crazy Cuckoo Clock

 

We did not have to promise to buy a Swiss Cuckoo Clock when Rick and I were nationalized, but Rick really wanted one. Aha, it will make a great birthday gift.

It is easy to find clocks in Geneva and I bought one, thinking, "Whew - birthday taken care of."

 Not so fast. "Let's go to Gruyere," he suggested. We knew the Covid shutdown was coming, so we thought we'd better go then. Rick continued. "I bet I can find the perfect cuckoo clock there.

Two choices.

1. Act like a bitch and reject every clock he would look at.
2. Give him the clock, early. It would still be a surprise.

I chose two and he loved it. 

However, we discover the clock has idiosyncrasies. 

We can shut it off, but it shuts itself off at night, which is good. Hearing cuckoos every hour followed by a song that varies is wonderful during the day, not so much at three in the morning.

I'm writing this at 7 p.m., 19h as the Europeans call it. I swear the cuckoo pops out and most hours are signaled double. Rick swears it's an echo. If it acted as a 24 hour clock, the cuckoo would have just rung 19 times, but it sang for 14. However, today at 2 p.m.(14h) it only cuckooed twice.

The bird decides to go to bed and stop cuckooing 8 (20h), 9 (21h), 10(22h). Maybe it is tireder some days than others. Most morning it wakes at 8 a.m. making it a lovely alarm, but this morning it decided to wake at 7. We have a dog who sleeps in and he did not seem happy to be disturbed for his first walk, especially because it was raining.

One day last week, the clock slept in until 9 but decided to ring 18 times or as Rick says, nine times and nine echos. 

Rick often has phone or zoom interviews. The clock is above his desk giving the interviewee a Cuckoo serenade.  

All this is not a complaint. I love the little figures coming out the door and dancing. I appreciate the man who spends his life sawing the wood, although the amount in the basket remains the same. The dog never bites anyone. The songs are cheery.

I suppose we could take the clock back to where we bought it to have it reset, but I kinda like it isn't conventional but just a bit crazy.

 

Loss -- Funny English

 

English is a funny language in the way we say things, especially about death.

In an Anne Tyler novel I'm reading, a character says she lost her mother. In the book she lost her three times, once to dementia, once when she went wandering in the neighborhood and once when she died.

Lost is often used to describe people who've died. Maybe if they are lost, it won't seem as permanent, they can be found again. In reality they can be found in memory, in photos, in old letters, but they won't be found in a hug or sharing a cup of tea across from us.

I've lost my grandparents, parents, my beloved stepmom, a friend of 50 years and another of 40 years. I didn't misplace them.   

The ashes of my friend of 40 years is in the cemetery to my village. Although I can't remember the exact cemetery locations in Malden, MA and Florida of my buried family members, I know if I go there I will be able to find their graves. 

I won't visit them because under current conditions, I do not want to enter the U.S. Visiting the final resting place of loved ones, was not something I did when I lived there. 

It was different with my grandmother, who made a several times a year ritual to visit the cemetery where her daughter, son and husband were buried. She loving planted flowers. She also visited the grave where her sister-in-law's family were buried nearby because her sister-in-law lived too far away in another state to do it. These visits are so different from those with the living with a cup of tea, a glass of wine and multi-person conversations that can be heard by everyone.

As a child we loved running around the cemetery while my grandmother planted the flowers, often chrysanthemums or pansies, without giving much thought to the people laid to rest under the grass where we played. 

Laid to rest is another of those phrases that doesn't say what is being said. Rest implies temporary and except for some religions, death is permanent. A bit closer to truth final resting place with the emphasis on final covers for both those who believe in life after death or not.

We also say things like, she passed. It seems like there was a deliberate movement. We pass cars, exams, property on to others, places, time and milestones in life like school graduations. Passing onto death has to be our biggest milestone worthy of a better word. 

There are ways people describe what the deceased is doing in death. "He's playing bridge with Aunt Evelyn, Uncle Butch and Auntie Bert" or "I hope he has lots of holes in one." We seldom mention, "I hope he doesn't run into X. Boy they hated each other." 

Even our pets have substitutions. We may lose a beloved pet, but more and more they cross the rainbow bridge a lovely image of them scampering across the bridge to a field with trees, flowers and four-footed friends on a sunny day.

Although I don't like to think of my own end, I do like the idea of me skipping across the bridge like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, to be greeted by Albert, Amadeus, Nikki, Mika, Clover, Toughie and all my lost pets and sitting down with long-gone family and friends. 

Redefine Socialism

 

I was a cub reporter covering a New England Town Hall in the middle 1960s. These meetings were made up of citizens (either the entire town or elected representatives) whose votes were binding.

The issue was adding fluoride to the drinking water.

"Creeping Socialism," one of the new representatives declared and people agreed. It was step toward Communism. Creeping socialism was defeated and cavities were safe for the time being.

At 16 I wasn't sure what the terms Socialism and Communism meant and it began a life-long research into the two economic philosophies and how they were implemented in different place. One thing that became clear both terms struck fear into the hearts of Americans including those that had no idea of the difference.

U.S. politicians can get the public to go against anything if they use the term Socialism. They use countries that have applied it and not done well like Venezuela as a horrible example.

Socialism and misery are not necessarily partners. 

What politicians don't point out, Socialism properly applied works well.

Six out of the top seven happiest countries in the world for 2024 were Northern European countries. Finland took top honors—for the tenth year in a row—with an overall score of 7.741, followed (in order) by Denmark (7.583), Iceland (7.525), Sweden (7.344), Israel (7.341), the Netherlands (7.319), and Norway (7.302). All are heavily socialistic. 

Why are these countries happy? Reasons include:

1. Taking care of social needs
2. Feeling of belonging to a community
3. Low corruption
4. Top education
5. Strong health care system 
6. A life balance

The U.S. was 24th. If 1-6 help to make a country happy it is easy to understand why the U.S. rates where it does.

 

Read the report https://worldhappiness.report/

 

 

 

 

Free Write -- on the carpet

Rick and I had breakfast at the new café across from the post. Julia, who is in Switzerland, sent us a photo as a prompt.

 Julia's Free Write

He hadn’t had a peaceful night at all.  Tossing and turning, mind whiling, wondering what the consequences of yesterday’s standoff would be.

Therefore, although he hadn’t heard anything (actually he had, but had attributed the small thumps to a dream) he wasn’t surprised upon arising  and going downstairs to find things laying on the rug.

Blood red rug, I might add.

He called his police friend, leaving everything in place then made coffee and tried not to think what it all meant.

His friend – not in uniform – duly arrived and both men stood there staring.

Finally, he saw the note laying on the desk.

“I refuse to cook any more for someone so ungrateful!

Your daughter”

Julia has written and taken photos all and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/

D-L's Free Write

"A picnic."

"But it's raining," Susan said to her daughter Jasmine.

"We'll have it on the rug."

Jasmine was thrilled with the idea. The cleaning woman had come yesterday and wouldn't be back until Monday.

"It'll be fun, Mom. Potato salad, hot dogs. We can grill them in the fireplace.

Grease dripping, Susan thought.

"Do we have marshmallows?  Graham crackers? Hershey bars?"

"No." 

Jasmine was 11,  a borderline teenager. Susan never knew would it be a doll day, a day she's want her ears pierced or if she'd spend the day lost in her books.

Her cuddly little girl seldom wanted to cuddle. Attempts were followed by a multi-syllable "Mother." Who knew that word could have five syllables?

From a child who used to tell her everything, Susan wondered if Jasmine took mute pills.

"I'll set the rug." Jasmine rummaged in the silverware drawer and put forks, knives and spoons on the rug. "We don't even need a tablecloth." 

Susan swallowed comments on germs, built the fire and used the leftover potatoes for the salad.

They ate on the rug, pretending the pounding rain was waves crashing on the shore. Jasmine jabbered about school, clothes, her friends and the new Judy Blume novel as Susan tried to ignore the crumbs on the rug.

 D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. https://dlnelsonwriter.com 

Rick's Free Write

Geoffrey had agreed to watch his nephew, Jack, for a few hours and quickly regretted the decision. The kid fit his name – he was as wired as a Terrier.

He only knew the six-year-old from visits to his sister Sonia’s house, usually family gatherings, and he could mostly ignore him there.

The kid was autistic, which Geoff didn’t really understand, nor had he bothered to research. He was sympathetic, so long as it didn’t affect his own life.

After Sonia dropped Jack off at his apartment in the city center, the kid didn’t say a word.

“Would you like to play a game?”

No response.

“Shall we have some lunch?”

No response.

So Geoff went into the kitchen and started preparing some sandwiches.

After a few minutes, Jack wandered in. Still mute.

“Hey, buddy. How about setting the table?” He handed Jack the knives, spoons and forks, and said, “We’ll eat in the living room on the coffee table.”

Jack disappeared with the cutlery.

Geoff finished up the PB&J sandwiches, the juice, and potato chips, loaded it all onto a tray, and headed for the living room.

The first thing he noticed was the silverware thrown on the rug.

The second thing he noticed was no Jack.

The third thing he noticed was the open front door.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com