"Sick to my stomach!'

While writing for the Louisville Courier-Journal, the late columnist Joe Creason told an amusing story that speaks to where we are today as a country.

Two candidates running for office in Kentucky traveled up and down the states, ripping each other verbally to shreds as they did their campaigning.  One day, they were both campaigning at a rally in am in a Kentucky town.  

One of the candidates had a habit of taking a drink of bourbon before getting up and speaking.  The rally was outside, it was a hot day, and the candidate was not wearing a hat.  The heat made the bourbon inside him act up, and suddenly, the candidate became sick in front of the entire audience.  

When he recovered, he stepped up to the platform, held up both hands, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this just proves what I have been saying all over Kentucky.  The man just plain makes me sick to my stomach!"

Yeah, that pretty much sums things up, doesn't it?  "The other guy just plain makes me sick to my stomach!"  

There is another part of this story that also speaks to where we are as a country, or rather, where we are not as a country.

Creason described the two men who traveled all over Kentucky verbally ripping each other to shreds on the campaign trail as "warm friends who often traveled to campaign sites in the same car." (I cannot remember if he was referring to an automobile or a railroad car.) 

Does anyone remember the days when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill battled it out in the political arena; Ronald Reagan as President and Tip O'Neill as Speaker of the House?  Reagan and O'Neill stood firmly on opposite sides of the political spectrum . . . and at the end of the day, would sit down and have a beer together.

Contrast that with our current President and Speaker, who haven't spoken to each other in a year.  

Contrast that with the current division in our country, where the results of Election Day 2020 shows a country almost evenly split down the middle, with some friends and family barely speaking to each other, if at all; with people fearing that the wrong word could ignite an argument, or that posting the wrong thing on social media will get you canceled.  

Is this what we have come to?  

Where we are so entrenched in our beliefs and our opinions that we will not even entertain that the other side might just have a point?  

In this environment, two opponents for political office can't be warm friends who travel together to the same campaign venue.  They can only be two people who verbally rip each other to shreds, both on and off the campaign trail.

That should make anyone sick to their stomach.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Election 2020

It's nearly 7:30 a.m., November 3, 2020, as I write this.  

By now, the residents of the tiny towns Dixville Notch and Millsfield, New Hampshire have cast their ballots for president.  Traditionally, they meet just after midnight and vote.  A third town, Hart's Location, scrapped their plans for midnight voting due to the COVID pandemic.  Their 48 voters will participate during normal hours.

Polls in my state of Georgia opened at 7 a.m., as they do in many states in the Eastern time zone.  By 10 a.m., the polls will be open in all 48 states.  By noon, they will be open in all 50.  

I've heard all the superlatives:  the most important election of our lifetimes, the future of this country rides on this election, etc.  

Never is that more true than now. 

Today, we have a choice.  

I have cast my ballot in early voting, as over 100 million people already have.  CNN states that the pre-election day vote "surpasses two-thirds of all 2016 ballots cast".  

Pundits have complained for years about poor voter turnout.  Well, this year, they may be wrong.

I have my feelings and my opinions about this election.  I haven't posted all of them on my Facebook page although I have posted and vented about them in private and secret groups.  Frankly, I really don't know at this point whether I'm at peace with the outcome or if I'm resigned to the outcome.  

God knows what is going to happen.  Sometimes, I wish He'd tell me, but I also understand that He is God and I am not.  And I'm not sure if I could bear the foreknowledge of certain events.  (Imagine knowing the time and manner of your death.  Would you be able to deal with that?)

I believe this is the election of a lifetime.  It comes during a year of COVID, a year of racial strife, a year of fire and flood and hurricane, a year of sniping, a year of disunity.  

What can I say?  I'm not an "influencer".  I don't have a YouTube channel.  I'm not an influential writer like a James Patterson, or a Stephen King; not a columnist like a George Will, or Leonard Pitts, or Peggy Noonan.  I'm just a person with a blog that a handful of people read and a few people say they enjoy. 

I realize how little power I have over the events of today.  I have one vote, and I can encourage others to vote, but when it all comes down to it, there's very little I can do about what will happen.  This is not meant to be a whine about how powerless I am, but a realistic look about what I do and do not have control over.  

I have cast my vote.  I have prayed.  The rest of this is in God's hands. 

For the past few days, I've woken up with the song "Courageous" by Casting Crowns playing in my head.  I deliberately linked to the lyric video here because the words are powerful. 

Too many American Christians, including myself, have put their hope in politics and getting the exact right President, Congress, governors, etc. in office. 

What has it gotten us?

A divided nation, and people who are more interested in earthly political power than they are in worshiping and serving the God they claim to follow.  I think many so-called Christian leaders have sold their soul for political power and influence.  When you do that, Mephistopheles WILL eventually come to collect the payment due.  

I'm not an influencer, but I will use whatever platform I have to (I pray) the honor and glory of God.  

I'll end by quoting from the song Courageous:

"The only way we'll ever stand
Is on our knees with lifted hands
Make us courageous
Lord make us courageous!"

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

239 Days

239 days.

34 weeks.

5,736 hours.

344,160 minutes.

20,649,600 seconds.

65.30% of 2020.

That is the amount of time between March 8, 2020, the last time I attended a Sunday worship service inside my building, and November 1, 2020, the next time I attended a Sunday worship service inside my building.

(I did the calculations on timeanddate.com.  So the hours, minutes, and seconds are give and take a few.)

We knew, on March 8th, that the pandemic was already here.  We just didn't know how bad it was going to get.  

We elected not to meet as a congregation out of a desire to stay healthy and protect others.  

We had tried to come back together in August, but our leaders canceled plans because of a spike in the COVID numbers. 

In the absence of being together, our tech team pulled together a virtual lobby, where we could "meet" without meeting.  

Our worship team filmed videos of their singing so we could sing with them.  

Our preacher, and others, filmed videos of their sermons.  

My ladies' Bible study communicated with each other via text message.

My small group held their meetings through Zoom.  

And thanks to Zoom, I got (and still get) to participate in my best friend's ladies Bible class in another state. 

But it was not the same.

Yesterday, I realized it was just not the same.

Yesterday, it was still "not the same".  We needed to register before we came to church (I'm guessing to manage the number of people in the building).  We needed to wear masks.  Inside, we picked up a portable communion set (a cellophane-wrapped wafer and vial of juice; and I am sorry, but that wafer tastes like foam!) and then went into an auditorium where every other row had a sign saying, "Don't sit here."  

We were reminded to "stay six feet apart" from people you didn't come to church with.  

And at the end, we were dismissed section by section and encouraged to "go fellowship in the parking lot".  (I felt like I was back in second grade and being dismissed by a teacher after lunch. :-) ) 

No, that was not the same.

But some things were still the same.

In spite of COVID, we came together, in a building, on Sunday.

We elbow-bumped, fist-bumped, air-hugged, jazz handed, and said how glad we were to be back.  

We sang, we raised hands, we praised God.

And we listened to our preacher remind us, before this election, to treat others as we would want to be treated.  We were reminded to "accept one another as God has accepted you".  

My son "made his rounds", as he does on Sundays.  We give him a dollar every week to put in the offering plate, and since we have not be able to attend, he's had no place to put his money.  Yesterday, he took all 34 dollars he'd saved since we had to stop meeting and contributed them.  

Maybe this is just for a little while.  Maybe we will have to stop meeting again in the building if the COVID numbers spike.  

I hope not and pray not.  

Because 239 days, 34 weeks, 5,736 hours, 344,160 minutes, 20,649,600 seconds, and 65.30% of 2020 is just too long to be apart.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

"Hurt"

It is a powerful, terrifying, heartbreaking song, and right now I am afraid to listen to it again.

It is Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt", written by Trent Reznor and originally recorded by Nine Inch Nails.

I've heard about the song, I've heard about its acclaim, its reception, but I never heard the song until today. 

It came up in one of my Spotify playlists, one of those Spotify makes for you based on stuff you've played in the past.  Probably, "Hurt" came up because I've played a couple of country/pop songs on Spotify before.  I saw on the playlist and thought about playing it, but decided not to.  

But after playing a few songs while doing some prep work for a proofing job, "Hurt" came on as the next song in the queue.  

And I froze.  

I think it may have been the first line:  "I hurt myself today to see if I still hurt" that got me.  

And during the chorus, when Cash laments about what he'd become and how everyone he knew went away in the end . . . and the guitar chords in the background of the chorus crescendo slowly, louder, louder, more emphatic.  

The song has ended, and I cannot bring myself to put on another one.  I thought about putting on another happy song, something to get this one out of my head . . . and how can I?  Because doing it, looking for something light, peppy, happy . . . it seems somehow disrespectful to the pain and the anguish of both Johnny Cash and Trent Reznor.  Putting on a happy tune says, "Go away, go away, I don't want to feel you right now; I don't want to face the sadness, the uncomfortableness; I don't want to face the fact that heartbreak and fear and sadness and depression exist."  

Pushing the feelings away, masking them with something upbeat and happy, it somehow seems wrong, disrespectful, almost sacreligious, as if I am blaspheming something sacred.  

The music has ended and right now I cannot put on music.  

Because all I can hear is Johnny Cash, in his gravelly voice.  

"I hurt myself today to see if I still hurt."

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

"Start panicking!"

 At 10 a.m. on Monday, October 5, 2020, Chief Justice John Roberts will mount the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States.  

Dressed in a black robe, followed by seven others dressed in black robes, he will bang his gavel, call the court to order, and issue the following proclamations:

• Abortion is now illegal.
• Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
• Gays can no longer marry.
• Transgenders no longer have job protection.
• Blacks can no longer vote.
• The South can revert back to Jim Crow.

From the way people are reacting to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that is exactly what it going to happen.

Monday, October 5, 2020, 10 a.m. is when the new session of the Supreme Court will convene.  It will do so without Ginsburg, who died on Friday after a battle with pancreatic cancer.  Pancreatic cancer is an awful disease, and I am glad she is no longer suffering with it.  

Her death has sparked discussions about her legacy (there was a time in this country where a married woman couldn't open a bank account without her husband co-signing, for example.)  

Her death has also sparked near-panic among many in social media.

Because now, there is a new spot on the SCOTUS, and there's a rush to fill it with a conservative justice before the November elections.  

Never mind that the party rushing to fill the vacancy is the same party that insisted that a SCOTUS vacancy under Obama shouldn't be filled until after that particular upcoming election.  

The last I checked, the SCOTUS does not have the power to unilaterally grant or take away the rights that I just listed above.  Chief Justice Roberts does not have the power to bang a gavel and say that gays can't marry, for example.  

What the SCOTUS does have the power to do is to listen to a case and decide what the law is.  Granted, the SCOTUS has made some dreadful decisions in the past.  No pun intended, but the Dred Scott decision comes to mind; also, Plessy v. Ferguson.  

The SCOTUS has also responded to changing times and bad decisions with decisions that reversed previous rulings; probably Brown v. Board of Education is the most famous.  

But Brown, and Roe, and others had to follow a long process to get to the SCOTUS.

This isn't the time to panic.  If you are genuinely worried about the direction the country is going in, educate yourself, make plans to vote in November, follow the docket of the SCOTUS, and write your representatives. And if you're genuinely afraid of the direction the country is heading -- and a majority of people are afraid -- then start looking for another country to call your own.  Maybe that is the best case for some who are able to do it. 

Panic feeds on panic, and it's panic that leads to bad decisions and ultimately to mob rule.  I don't want to live under mob rule, but I fear that in these days of social media cancel culture and fake news, it may happen.

Then it may be time to start panicking.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 1-3, Quarantine Edition

I haven’t done a TEOTWAWKI journal lately.

I mean, what is there to say? 

We’re in the midst of a pandemic, the response to the pandemic in the USA has been and is being mismanaged by both incompetent leadership and selfish people who refuse to wear masks and take appropriate precautions, all in the name of “my freedom” and “I refuse to live in fear”. 

Race relations in this country have sunk to a terrible low. 

And don’t get me started on the coming election.

Like probably all of us, I feel weary and burdened.  I struggle with feelings of depression, of being buried under the weight of everything going on in the world, and also being buried under the weight of dealing with everyday life.  I am grateful for the work I have and for the money I can earn.  But sometimes, carrying everything is exhausting. 

Monday, the five letters, two numbers, and hyphen that have come to define our lives hit home. 

My husband called me and said that he’d been exposed to someone at work who’d tested positive for COVID.  He was sent home immediately.  At the moment, he is quarantined in our home office.  This is Wednesday, his third day of quarantine; which is why this is Quarantine Edition, Day 1-3. 

He is showing no symptoms.  Neither am I and neither is our son.  At the time of exposure, he was wearing a mask, as was the other person, and they were both practicing social distancing.  

The odds of any of us getting sick are low.  But he is going to have to be tested in a few days.  

Since the rise of COVID numbers in my state, I’ve made sure to wear a mask when I go out and have my family wear them also.  I wash my hands.  This past Saturday, my son and I went to a gathering at our church.  It was outside, we all wore masks, and when we sat down, the chairs were six feet apart.  

Today, I had an appointment with my ear, nose, throat doctor to make sure that I was doing OK with my CPAP.  I called the office yesterday to tell them that my husband had been exposed, and when I said that my husband was quarantined in the office, that he’d worn a mask when he was at work, and had practiced social distancing, the office person said that I was at very low risk.  

When I went there today, they asked me if I wanted a COVID test, and since I was there, I decided to do it.  

They use a swab and insert it into your nose.  

A long swab. 

Inserted WAY up your nose. 

I said after it was over that that test seriously cleared out your sinuses! 

I will know the results by Friday. 

(As far as the CPAP is concerned, I’m doing okay.  I use it every time I go to bed.).

So, life in my house consists of going to necessary places and coming immediately home, wearing masks, working from home (my husband was cleared for working from home even before he was exposed; he was at the office due to problems with our WiFi.).

And I need to get my son ready to start back to his program.  And figure out what to do when his program ends in February.  (We are in the system with Vocational Rehabilitation, and there are other options available.).

This will not be an encouraging entry.  Outside events and internal issues have drained me.  Just like the vast majority of us on this earth. 

Instead of being snarky, today’s theme song reads:

It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it . . . 

And I don’t feel fine. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Letter to the editor, but not mine . . .

On June 4, 1980, in response to the Florida Legislature's raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 19, the St. Petersburg Times published the following letter to the editor:

Tina Sergent was my name before I got married.

I did not write this letter.

In fact, the very first thing I ever heard about this letter was when a classmate of mine walked into first period and said, "I didn't know you were 18."

I wasn't.  In fact, I was 16 in June of 1980.

I don't know of anyone else named Tina Sergent who lived in St. Petersburg, Florida and who was 18 years old in 1980.  So, unless there was another Tina Sergent who wrote that letter to the editor and had it published, the only other possibility I can think of is that someone wrote that letter and signed my name to it.

My piano teacher even asked me about it, and my father's response was that probably one of my "friends" wrote it. 

Here's my question:

Why?

I may not be able to find out, after 40 years, who wrote this letter and why, but I'd like to know why.

Was this a calculated attempt to embarrass and humiliate me? 

To be honest, I would not be surprised.  I went through public school and didn't have a year where there wasn't a bully.  

This week, I proofread a harassment case.  The lawyer doing the deposition commented that there wasn't any touching involved. 


That comment reminded me of what abusers sometimes say:  "I never laid a hand on them."  "I never hit them."  "I never touched you." 


I never got in a knock-down, drag-out fight during my years in school.  I did get punched in the back one time on the bus, and I hit back twice. 


But I:  was blocked on a sidewalk and in the hallways, had my books stolen, had stuff played "keep-away" with, had my shoes thrown in the trash, was gossiped about (even was falsely accused of shooting crumbs at lunch one time), and for me, the crowning insult:  the embarrassing question.  I was shown a picture of a naked person and then asked later, did you see such and such?  I wore and Adidas shirt to school and was later asked if I went to the Adidas concert.  I had my attempts to play volleyball mocked.  I was asked, will you do my homework for me?  I was asked, can I borrow your textbook? from a person I didn't trust.  I had a boy attempt to shove a ring onto my finger.  That same person also asked me if my little sister drank milk from my breasts.  I had a group of people yell at me that the bus was coming, and when I ran, they laughed at me because the bus wasn't coming.  When they repeated that trick and I didn't fall for it, someone said, "You'd walk if the bus came, wouldn't you?" and then threw a piece of paper in my face. 

And this is not the end of it. 

So I think I can be forgiven for suspecting that that letter to the editor signed with my name was a calculated attempt to embarrass me. 

Here's what I would like to know, and may not get an answer to:

What in God's name did I ever do to you that you treated me like this? 
What did I do to you that was so horrible?
Why did you do this to me?
Why did you target me?
And why was the system around me structured so that I feared that if I fought back, I would be the person punished and the bullies would not be?



This week has not been a good week.  Like everyone in the US, I am tired of living under the chronic stress of COVID.  I am disheartened by the racial animus in this country.  (I am not referring to peaceful protests, nor am I referring to African-Americans' insistence on "we need to expose history, all of it, and we need to be heard."  One can be passionate and insistent without being hateful.)  I dislike the animus between the parties as the election draws closer.  In fact, I hold out very little hope of this country ever getting better. 

I put in a lot of energy this week into work and drained myself of so much physical energy that I took a day off on Friday because I was just sapped.  When I don't feel well physically, my mind turns absolutely black, and sadly, remembering the bullying is one place where it goes . . . and this is one question it asks. 

Why?


Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.