2020 Life Logs, Day 323: Shame Be Upon Us
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2020
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Warming; High 50, Low 47 Degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Mark’s maternal grandmother was a devout Methodist who loved to read Shakespeare, so his mother was reared in that tradition. His mother, Jeannette Bryant, married a devout Catholic, Dan Handley. She eventually converted to Catholicism, but she never gave up her love of martinis. When she had one too many, she often made statements that sounded very biblical, sometimes Shakespearian, or a combination of the two. I can still hear her saying to me, “Shame be upon you,” when I bested her in a game of bridge. So tonight, when I was thinking about our current situation in this country, I found myself using my mother-in-law’s language. I was thinking, “Shame be upon us as a nation that we are all just standing by and watching our democratic form of government being trashed by one man and his team of henchmen.” So now I am saying it out loud and seriously wondering what we as citizens need to be doing. I was absolutely aghast tonight to find that Trump has summoned the Republican heads of the state of Michigan’s Senate and House to the White House this weekend, just prior to the final certification of the election in Michigan on Monday. And he trying to strong arm Republicans in Pennsylvania to get the results of the election there overturned so the Republican legislature can change the will of the voters. Why is no one sounding the alarm? Everyone is talking about it, but no one is taking action. No one, no one, in this country should be allowed to carry on like this. Michelle Obama said it best, “This is not a game.” But it is being played that way. So those of us who value our democracy need to get smarter about our next moves. With people like Sidney Powell, member of Trump’s legal team, saying on Fox Legal News today that the results of this election should simply be overturned, we cannot bury our heads in the sand and simply say that this, too, shall pass. I fear it might not if we don’t make our voices heard . . . LOUDLY.
Then there is the fact that today the first Coronavirus Task Force press conference in five months was held. No Trump, no questions answered, but at least there was a statement that we all need to be wearing masks, using physical distancing, and only gathering with those we live with for Thanksgiving. How can we live with ourselves knowing that we have allowed the leadership of this country to simply ignore the fact that we are experiencing the worst pandemic in over a hundred years? I need to take a deep breath, go to bed, and wake up in the morning learning that all of this was just a bad dream. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.
