On the Timeline of History

The takeover of local, state, and federal governments that included Wisconsin's era of Scott Walker, voting restrictions, and Act 10 was calculated and progressed in planned, concerted steps.

With that 10+ year success, which was partially cracked only this year with the gerrymandering conviction and mandated redistricting in WI, the next plan being leaned on is Project 2025, which is populated by a host of individuals associated with former president Trump.


It's vital to understand this:

A new, long-range, and detailed political plan is in place and its scope in both depth and breadth deserves a title Version 2.0. It is being packaged as being for the modern patriot and that the entire system, not just the current administration, is King George.

I don't accept that. To do so is to say the Great American Experiment is over.


Yes, I do find myself wondering if I'm wrong and my descendants will carry the stigma that colonists who remained loyal to the crown did, as did their descendants.


I hope not. I don’t believe the facts validate this fear. When I look at the list of changes being promoted, I cannot support them. Dismantling the Department of Education? Rolling back regulations enforced by the EPA? Reversing Health & Human Services policies on reproductive rights (including birth control) and LGBTQIA issues? Making it OK to quickly fire and replace career civil service employees if they are objecting to an administration?


I believe those Americans grabbing for the mirage being sold want to belong to a group that promises a piece of imagined glory that no one else can provide as their reward. That method of manipulation is a tried and true one. We have to remember that those who lived in the South who didn’t own people didn’t fight that system because they actually hoped to someday be in that position of wealth and power themselves. They were incentivized to support slavery.

Project 2025 was written by 35 main authors and hundreds of contributors. Twelve of the main ones listed are:

- Rick Dearborn for the White House Office

- Russ Vought for the Executive Office of the President

- Christopher Miller for the Department of Defense

- Ken Cuccinelli for the Department of Homeland Security

- Kiron K. Skinner for the Department of State

- Lindsey M. Burke for the Department of Education

- Bernard L. McNamee for the Department of Energy

- Roger Severino for the Department of Health and Human Services

- Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD for the Department of Housing and Urban Development

- Gene Hamilton for the Department of Justice

- Jonathan Berry for the Department of Labor

- Diana Furchtgott-Roth for the Department of Transportation


You can get the full chapter and author list on the Heritage Foundation website.


Don’t get me wrong, I applaud anyone who has the foresight and organizational skills to design, build, and maintain a detailed action plan. It shows dedication and determination to set out one’s desires and plans and follow it. I certainly hope all political parties do this. And all businesses, charities, etc.


It’s all about the actual content and how one seeks to achieve one’s plans. That’s the problem here. The people behind this project supported the 45th president and they are writing this plan to ensure that his next time through doesn’t face any inside roadblocks as was seen in the first or outside ones.


This plan *could* be applied under any “conservative” presidency. 2024, 2028…whenever. It’s built for whoever wants this machine to work for them and them for that person. If that person fails this group think, I am sure they will be abandoned and a new figurehead would be found who will.

Racism, sexism, cronyism…all the -isms where here when “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” was written, and they are still here today. We’ve changed- thank goodness. We need to evolve much more- please, may it be.

I have faith it’s possible within the system we have that’s lasted now for 248 years.


If we don’t give up.


Please vote in every election you are eligible to vote it.

My Problems with Math

We're in this together.

Many forms of mathematics leave me dazed and confused. That frustrated my father and he attempted repeatedly to assert that I believed *women* couldn’t do math. 

It wasn’t true. No. 100% no. The fire of his belief always took me aback.


Unlike some, I cannot compartmentalize groups of people based on some specific trait. Why not? It would be so much easier to say:


Women can’t do A. They can do B.

Black people can’t do A. They can do B.

Indigenous people can’t do A. They can do B.

Non-binary sexual orientations or genders can’t do A. They can do B.

Those with disabilities can’t do A. They can do B.


Those A’s and B’s vary by the descriptives pulled by those making these judgements. The A’s can be (and have been) things like going to high school, going to college, running a company, owning a home, living in a town, getting loans, going to the bank across town, getting married, driving, going to this school, being a doctor, earning a living wage, and more. What are some others you thought of?


After I started this list, I realized that there really isn’t a “Men can’t do A. They can do B.” category. Then I had to add a condition: Is there an assumed filter or bias (By me? By all?) on that term “Men”? Is it only *white* men? Do they have a “can’t” or would it be more accurate to say theirs is closer to “don’t need to”? Or “don’t even consider doing”? I wonder.


I haven’t yet touched on the problems relating to the subjects in the can/can’t statements I sketched out: Women. Blacks. Indigenous. LBGTQIA. People with disabilities. For example, race is a construct. It’s emphasized by those in power to maintain that power. Gender was also used to be a “solid” way to divide us into 2, until our knowledge expanded and the problems of this “gimme” of categorization and ranking became apparent.


What is my point? It takes effort to change our thinking, but there are goals we should work into our realities:

I can’t do math well. But anyone who can should have the opportunity to fly with their skills. (Colleges have banned a host of categories of people over the years. Today, affordability is a huge hurdle.)

I can get married. Anyone who wants to should have the opportunity. (Different races weren’t allowed to marry each other for quite a while. More is needed.)

I can get a divorce. Anyone who wants to should have the opportunity. (Women used to not be allowed to divorce their husbands. No fault divorce is in jeopardy.)

I can’t run fast. Anyone who can should have the opportunity to fly with their skills. (Different people have been not allowed to compete in all kinds of sports at different times over the country’s existence. Why do we still have male/female categories? Couldn’t we have a range of inclusive leagues with different abilities?)

The list goes on and on. We’ve never been perfect as a country. We have evolved. Both of those statements are true and the additional truth is that we can and must do a lot more to be bigger people. It won’t freeze us into the inability to act. It will allow us to maximize our potentials and alleviate hurt. It won’t make us lose our identity. It will help us see our species more clearly.


Humanity is capable of both exquisite beauty and monstrous ugliness. Each new day is an opportunity to move the needle a bit further. Let’s remember that each dawn and each sunset.

Wisconsin 2024

 

The folks who currently sit in Wisconsin legislative seats that were found to be excessively and illegally gerrymandered are attempting to change the Wisconsin Constitution AGAIN.

After we all vote and decide the November 2024 election, we will have an entirely new legislative body than what we have today in Wisconsin. The maps have been redrawn (I urge you to check your address and see your new districts and leadership). The current legislature approved the new maps.

And yet they are again trying to make state-wide constitutional power changes in the August primary.

They succeeded in convincing enough voters this spring to make 2 changes to the state constitution regarding elections. We have yet to see how those amendments will affect election funding and administration. Will there be big unexpected and unapproved expenses? Will we have smooth elections with enough staffing? We do know that the state does not fully fund our election needs and that there has been much argument over expanding or restricting voting right access in Wisconsin and elsewhere. We’ll see.

Now, there’s another attempt with 2 additional changes to our state constitution, which the League of Women Voters has analyzed and determined are, as they had said about April’s changes, are too vague and not helpful and should be VOTE NOs.

Here’s my issue: I have a serious problem with making ANY changes to ANY state’s constitution that are asked for by ANY group of people who were in power because they cheated to get there. 

Constitutional changes should be carefully crafted and vetted. Their ramifications must be weighed across time before being put into place. A state’s constitution should not be made the playground of sore losers trying to punish those they feel wronged them.

Sometimes the state gets allocated chunks of money from the federal government. The two amendments being proposed to voters seek to give the legislature sole control over these monies. If you recall, some COVID money stipulated that the money given had to be used for specific COVID-related expenses or losses. At the time, the governor was willing and able to do that while our legislature complained. Evers eventually vetoed a bill brought up by the legislature that sought to seize control of those funds. These new amendment requests seem, in my mind, to be another attempt to circumvent balances of power between the 3 branches of Wisconsin government. 

Federal money can be for things like a pandemic. Or a huge tornado. Or a devastating drought. Or a chemical spill. Basically, any situation that a state seeks help with from DC and receives funds. It’s national money for our combined benefit so it should be allocated as the nation indicates with the support of the elected officials of the state. All the officials. Not just the state legislature, and especially not one whose operation has been manipulated so grossly for so many years that it finally caught up with them through the efforts of citizens and the court system.

If a Republican or other takes the governorship and leaves the legislature as Democrat-controlled, I would want both offices to work together. If federal money came in, I’d hope the 2 branches would work together with whatever restrictions are placed by the grantor. Neither would “win” all the time.

To me, life’s not about “winning”. It’s about working for overall positive movement. It’s hard. It takes time. It takes compromising and negotiation.

My Vessel- A Poem

I thought of my 3 parts this morning and some words came out:

 

My Vessel

Three parts: body, mind, and soul.

Body feels so small now

How can I bend forward and already be at my feet?

I thought I was bigger.

My beautiful feet-

Beautiful because of what they have allowed me

Motion

Drivers

Balance

I love them more now that

The path we’re on is so much shorter than it was before.

Mind is so much slower now

Why do I always seem to be forgetting something simple?

I wished for years for it to stop.

My beautiful brain-

Beautiful because it has connected and recorded so so many things

Sights

Smells

Ideas

I love it more now that

It works more in tandem with my feet.

Spirit is so much more content now

How can I express the delicious peace I am able to reach now?

I howled in pain for so long.

That beautiful spirit-

Beautiful in its veil of acceptance that slowly settles when allowed

All

Is

One

My feet.

My mind.

That spirit.

Another Turn

Reading my essay from the beginning of 2023 was difficult. So much has changed. Damn that “letting go” thing.


We ended Owen’s life on January 6. When I wrote last year’s essay, he was still with us and I said we were trying to hear what he wanted. His last months and the aftermath were both an honor and an emotional tsunami to survive. For the time he couldn’t quite do it for himself, I carried him outside, cleaned him, pet him, and we all loved him and circled up when it was time to bury the shell he left behind. That cat never gave up going downstairs to use his litter box. When I found him struggling to make the journey, I felt I wanted to let him go with his dignity more than I wanted to cling to his precious soul. Was his voice in there, too? Maybe someday I’ll know. The pain of loss is no longer raw but still catches me at times. We put his body into the ground and in the spring we adorned his grave with 13 ginger plants. Finding catnip left during the year by other members of the family let me know they have felt his loss, too. He was and forever will be, family.


My written goal on my Twitter account for 2023 was to work on moving the mic to others who haven’t had it.


I terminated my account on Formerly-Known-As-Twitter in 2023 and that was another big change for me. I’d made it a habit to use my profile page there to establish for myself and the world what my goal for the year was. While it was never perfect, the turns that platform has made since the new guy in management took over drove me away. That stage is not a place to be right now, in my opinion. Some people from around the globe who had become somehow dear to me are no longer in my world anymore because of that change. It’s strangely painful when I stop to think about it. However, if I send them loving energy into the vast cosmos, I hope it finds them somehow. I can find new and sustaining relationships near and far through other means. I know that truth now.


There’s that letting go thing, again.


What do I see when I think of 2024?

For one thing, 2024 is going to be about fledging: getting big enough wings to fly.

Our youngest son will go away for college in the fall if all goes as we see now.


I will nurture (with a lot of help) a garden into existence big enough to substantially support 3 high schools if all goes as we see now.


I will get into a system of self-care that will see me remain pain-free but develop a return to better food choices, glucose management, and strength/cardio characteristics if all goes as I see now. My body has been handling the carrying of excess weight surprisingly well but it’s time for me to see if my next evolution can pull away from the lures of the flesh a bit and fly a bit further and farther before it’s time for this me to rest. Will my rainbow aura expand and brighten even more? I can hope.


I got a second tattoo in 2023. In 2021, I decided to honor the evolution I'd undergone to that point with my first which finally happened in early 2022. I may have physically been stronger through those previous years, but my insides had been an absolute mess. The messages and atmosphere of BTS played a big role in my growth. As did friends. And COVID. And a host of other things. It’s all represented in that first tattoo, which faces me as a daily message to myself:

"I’m good enough. Face the world with your head up. Speak your truths. Love yourself. You’re not alone and you are much, much stronger than you think you are because of that."

This second tattoo crawls down the length of my left forearm making it easily shareable with others because it’s a message to the world. It's my chosen message to the world. I heard this phrase during the Grammys, I believe, and it was spoken by an Indian award winner. He said it was part of his religious tradition and its truth screamed at me as he joyously proclaimed, “The world is one family!”

The world…is one family. Wow.

My 2024 will be grounded in that wondrous idea and what it really means. What if we lived everything grounded in that short declaration? It’s incredibly humbling and awe-inspiring to me to consider. The term “family” has always had a bitter current running through it for me so this use helps me work through that. I had the tattoo artist add a bumblebee and dandelion to the phrase. The insects are my family. The weeds are my family. And yours! And I am yours! That darn yellow flower has haunted me for years with its messages:

"I’m a weed. But I feed others. I birth seeds that can fly to far places. I survive. We survive."

 

They are all my family and I am theirs.

So, my goals for 2024 are ones of flying and acknowledging more and more family. Nothing really new for me from the last few years, but It’s another turn on the theme. I feel a fullness of hope and anticipation for a new year, which are both actually rather new for me. In 2023, I wanted to witness. This year, I want to jump in.

It's time for another turn.