Day of Infamy, Redux

Yesterday, January 6, 2021, a date which will live in infamy, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by an out-of-control mob.

Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, we should have seen this coming, and many people did see something like this coming.

When a group of people who President Trump famously told to "stand back and stand by" announce that they will be in the nation's capital on the day the Electoral College was ratified, for the specific purpose of protesting the results of that Electoral College, and when the President of the United States himself welcomes them, tells people the time and date of a "stop the steal" rally, and then exhorts them informing them that "you will never take back our country with weakness", you should know that things have the potential to not end well.

Indeed, it ended badly.

The crowd, bearing Trump banners, Trump flags, Trump hats, probably Trump T-shirts, and most disgustingly, American flags and the Christian flag which hangs in many churches, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, right to the building where, in their mind, the greatest threat to the United States of America sat:  the 535 members of the United States Congress and the Vice-President of the United States.

Once there, they forced their way past a police barrier and swarmed the steps of the Capitol Building.

I was watching CSPAN on my computer, thinking that I just had a ringside seat to political theatre and ready to spend several hours mentally rolling my eyes at the hot air and stupidity of certain Congresspeople (I'm looking at you, Ted Cruz!) 

Then I started hearing reports of protestors surrounding the Capitol, so I decided to pack up the computer and move to the TV. 

I left the room briefly.

When I came back, I saw people marching into the Capitol.  This is the Capitol building which has been off-limits to the general public since COVID hit. 

And that's when I said, "Oh, my God."

The world now knows the evolving and the devolving of the situation over the next several hours.

They now know that protestors rammed the barricaded door of the House chambers.

They now know that protestors got into the House chambers and the Senate chambers. One protestor got his picture taken in the seat that the Vice President uses to preside over the Senate when it was in session.

One protestor got into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, plopped himself down in her chair, got his picture taken, and then swiped a piece of mail from her desk, leaving her a quarter to pay for it.  (Does he not know that the price of a stamp has not been a quarter for years?) 

A group of protestors were pictured scaling a wall to get onto the Capitol grounds.  If you are a Baby Boomer or an older Gen Xer, you may remember film footage of Iranian terrorists hoisting themselves over the walls of the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran in 1979.  I remember that footage, and the photo of the people climbing the wall brought back memories of that awful time.

Another group "borrowed" a scaffold to lower the American flag and replace it with a Trump flag.

Still other protestors broke windows of the US Capitol to get inside.  When I heard that piece of news, that, for me, was the point where that protest stopped being "peaceful" and started being "violent".

We also now know that there were people who acted at great risk to keep the members of Congress safe. They ordered everyone to get down, gave them gas masks, and had them lie on the floor while outside, people pounded on the barricaded doors.  

People in the building were ordered to stay away from windows and make no noise. Just like an entire generation of school children have had to do for the last 20 years to protect themselves from mass shooters.

One pipe bomb was found at the local offices of the Democratic National Committee.  Another was found at the local offices of the Republican National Committee.  Apparently, some protesters were non-partisan in their desire for destruction.  And if pipe bombs were not enough, the police also had to remove a cooler full of Molotov cocktails.  (I assume these were not on ice and were probably not intended to be served "shaken, not stirred".)

And where, during all of this turmoil, was our President? 

Sitting in the Oval Office, watching the unraveling of the law and order he so proudly championed during his campaign for Presidency and making no move to stop it.

Until he made a video telling everyone, we love you, you're special, the election was still stolen, but you need to go home.

Five people are now dead as the result of this madness.  One woman, Ashli Babbitt, 35, described as a pro-Trump California native and Air Force veteran, was shot by Capitol Police.  The other three -- one a woman from Kennesaw (metro Atlanta) -- died from "medical emergencies" on the scene.  The death of number five, a US Capitol Police officer, was announced as I was writing this.  

Over 50 police officers were hurt. I do not know how many protestors were hurt.  

In the camera shots of the front of the Capitol, if you watch long enough, you'll notice that there are protestors being escorted out.  When I saw that, I asked myself, "Okay, why are the cops not using their batons to break up this group?"

I wasn't the only one that picked up on that. A good number of people -- including President-elect Joe Biden -- commented that if these protesters had been mostly black, instead of mostly white, the police response would have been a lot different. I have friends who are convinced that the police would have started shooting into the crowd.  And, given the experiences of African-Americans with the police, I can't disagree with those who feel that way.

At the moment, we have growing calls for either impeachment or the invoking of the 25th Amendment, which calls for the removal of the President if he is deemed unfit to perform his duties.  We also have a list of staff members who've resigned, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is also the wife of Senator Mitch McConnell. 

In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, the now-traumatized Representatives and Senators, along with staff, went back to work.  For all of my criticism of Washington, DC politics, these men and women are to be commended for going back in and finishing the job they were Constitutionally mandated to do, which is, follow the Constitution and certify the results of the Presidential election.  

And, despite the stubbornness -- or stupidity -- of those who still protested the Electoral College results, Joe Biden was confirmed as the winner of the Presidential election, January 7, 2021, at close to 4 a.m.  

Donald J. Trump will be President for 13 more days, barring unforeseen events. 

I pray we last long enough to get to the inauguration.

I do not want another day of infamy.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Five letters, one hyphen, two numbers

Five letters.

One hyphen.

Two numbers.

Nothing else had a greater impact on our lives last year than those eight written symbols.  (And boy, am I glad to write those words, "last year".)

It was a year ago since the initial reports of "a new virus in Wuhan, China" first started trickling in.  In February, I visited my doctor and commented about how no, I didn't need to worry about "that new thing in China" because I hadn't been out of the country.

Just a few days later, I read a headline saying that the CDC was warning us to be preparing for "significant disruptions", and I thought, "This sounds like fearmongering, but just in case, I better start stocking up on food."

I count March 13th as the day all hell broke loose.

March 13th was the first day that my son was home from school on a school holiday that would have been a make up snow day.  He did not go back into a physical building until August. 

How to describe a visit to a local Kroger on that week?  People were not angry, or screaming, or shoving each other out of the way.  It was just a very busy buzz, people going up and down the aisles, grabbing the stuff they needed, standing in lines, not full of screaming anxiety but rather with jaws grimly set.  

I remember driving down the road that week in March, listening to the news, and thinking, "I will not panic.  I will not panic." I fall into the category of "prepper", and while I do not have an underground bunker against the unlikely possibility of thermonuclear war, I do believe in keeping a full pantry and a decent amount in savings. So when rumblings of a pandemic hit, my purchases were more in the category of comfort food (think Fritos, Lays, and M & M's) than in necessities. I did make a bread run and was nicely told at the checkout counter, next time, the limit is two or four loaves. I also yelled, "Score!" to someone who was coming out of Aldi with a package of paper towels.  She laughed. 

I cannot complain about how "no one else had to deal with . . ." because no one on earth remained unaffected by these five letters, one hyphen, and two numbers.  In fact, I feel rather bubbled.  My husband was able to transfer to working at home.  I already work at home.  Our biggest challenge was switching office areas and getting adjusted to a new schedule.  Going along with that challenge was getting my husband set up to be able to work at home!  

My poor son had a hard time adjusting.  Since he has autism, he has a difficult time with changes in routine.  And his poor mother had a meltdown when she couldn't get the scanner on her computer properly. 

But since then, we, along with the majority of the world, have learned how to work Zoom or whatever your communications platform is. ("You're on mute" is the sentence of 2020.)

We learned to work with online church and a chat room (which my son was the first to enter on Sundays.) And I learned how to make communion bread.  

For weeks, I mentally sang "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" while washing my hands.  When I got bored with that, I switched to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat". 

And, like so many in the world, I watched and listened in alternating pride, disbelief, horror, shock, anger, surprise, and other words in the gamut of emotions as the year unfolded.

The term "essential worker" is now a permanent addition to our vocabulary. So is "social distancing". 

Who can forget the pictures of doctors and nurses slumped over in exhaustion, their faces bruised from the hours of wearing a medical-grade mask? 

And while sitting at my home office desk in Atlanta, I watched as simmering fury over the death of George Floyd while in police custody boiled over into rioting. In the days that followed, we heard and saw protest, grief, lament, and expressions of exhaustion.  (I know people who participated non-violently in local area protests.  I was very proud of them.)

And as I write this, our President still refuses to accept that he was voted out of office by the American people. While the simmering political anger has not yet exploded into major rioting and major violence, I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Today is the first day of a new year, and like I said earlier, I was never so glad to say "last year" than I was when the ball dropped at Times Square and the socially distanced crowd counted down to "Happy New Year!" I nearly cried. 

I have no illusions that just flipping the calendar over, or putting a new calendar on the wall, is going to magically change anything.  I also have no illusions that a transfer of power on January 20th will magically pull our country out of our pessimistic funk. The best I hope for is a morale boost.  New starts, or at least perceived new starts, are helpful.

Today is a new start, a clean slate of sorts. 

But here is one of the biggest lessons I have learned from this pandemic.

Five letters.

One hyphen.

Two numbers.

COVID-19.

Those eight written symbols brought the entire world to its knees in 2020.  

I think we should all be humbled by that fact.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

If you don't get anything else out of this . . .

My preacher has two sentences he often uses in sermons.

The first is, "Shake your head yes, no, or maybe, it'll go faster" after asking a question of the audience. 

The second is, "If you don't get anything else out of this sermon today, I want you to get this."

The first sentence usually gets a chuckle out of me. 

The second sentence, to me, is a signal to "listen up!" because I'm about to hear a main point.

Has this been any other year, last night we would have had our Christmas Eve service.  We would have sung along with our praise team, listened to our preacher's take on Christmas, and then ended with a rendition of "Silent Night" as each congregation member held a lit candle.  

2020 has not been any other year.

I had wondered if we would do an in-person Christmas Eve service this year, and a couple of weeks ago, I got my answer:  No. Instead, we would do a virtual service, as we did for so many months this year, from March until November (and as we still offer for those who don't feel comfortable or safe coming to an in-person service right now.)  

When the plans for the virtual service were announced, we were told, don't worry, we are still going to do our candles!  

So last night, Christmas Eve, at 5 p.m., with the rain falling outside mixed with either a bit of sleet or snow and the temperature hovering in the 30's, we pulled up our chairs to our dining room table, in front of my PC, and we watched as, thanks to the talents of our tech team and our praise team, and thanks to several families from our church, we listened as we celebrated Christmas in song and story.  

Members of our praise team, standing six feet apart, sang; members of our church (both kids and grownups) read portions of the Christmas story. 

And our preacher spoke. 

Since, for the past couple of years, Christmas has now become a debate about what Mary did or did not know, our preacher tackled the song "Mary, Did You Know?" and said that no, she didn't.  The angel Gabriel did tell her, "you will have a son and he will be the Messiah."  She knew that.  

She didn't know that she and her husband would have to flee for their lives, as refugees do today; that perhaps, when they returned to Nazareth, their family would probably be the subject of rumors and gossip ("Son of God? Really?"), and that she, herself, would wonder at least once if her eldest son was out of his mind.

She didn't know that a crowd that welcomed him with "Hosanna!" on Palm Sunday would scream "Crucify him!" mere days later. 

And she didn't know that death would not have the final word; that resurrection would.  

But, our preacher pointed out, Mary knew the faithfulness of God.  Mary was a Jewish girl who would have known of a prophesied Messiah.  She would have known the story of the Exodus, the story of Joshua, of David, of Solomon, of the exile to Babylon and the return home of the exiles.  

Over and over, she would have heard how God took care of his people. 

Mary may not have known the future, but she knew the past faithfulness of God . . . and although my preacher didn't say these words, I thought of the sentence, "If you don't get anything else out of this, get this."  

We have suffered through a long, difficult, weary year; a year of so much loss, so much suffering, so much anger, so much exhaustion, so much isolation. No one on earth has been unaffected. 

Personally, while I have lost no one to COVID, nor have I lost a job, I also have struggled this year with the effects of isolation, with the fallout of COVID and of the racial unrest in the US and the US presidential election and its aftermath.  I've adjusted to a spouse now working at home and dealt with a son doing digital learning through the computer.  I've asked questions about God, about faith, and I still have more questions than answers at times.

But I cannot get away from what Mary couldn't get away from, either:  That although neither of us know the future, we know the past faithfulness of God. 

God has not always done what I want Him to do when I want Him to do it. I don't understand why he does not directly intervene to stop COVID, stop the evil of racism, open the eyes of people so that they can see truth, make it obvious who can be trusted and who cannot be. 

But I still believe that God is faithful. I still believe that God cares, that He became human for a time to show us that yes, He does love us; yes, He was willing to become one of us to tell us, yes, I suffered when I was tempted so I can help those who are being tempted. He was willing to die for our sins because He wanted a relationship with us.  

Last night, at the end of our service, we were told to get our candles and light them, while a recording of our praise team singing "Silent Night" played over videos of candles.  

My family took three candles and lit them. And we watched the computer screen as we sang "Silent Night", a homage to a virgin mother and child, a story of shepherds quaking and glories streaming, and of a Son of God that is "love's pure light".  

If you don't get anything else out of this, get this;

Even through a computer screen, in this year of masks and social distancing, of Zoom, of an increasing "us vs. them mentality" . . . there is a God who is still faithful, a God who still cares about his people, a God who loves them.  

Just as a young girl named Mary did, I count on my past experiences with God's faithfulness to believe that He will see me through an uncertain future.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

That’s Doctor Biden --and Doctor Engineer -- to You, Sir!

In a conversation held probably in the late 1940’s or very early 1950’s, a teacher informed a mother that her youngest son “would never amount to anything.”

Today, that youngest son is the proud owner of a doctorate in engineering. 

He’s traveled all over the world, worked for the Honeywell Corporation, and taught at a large university. 

He is one of a handful of people in the country that knows what he knows.

He put in the hard work to earn the title “Doctor” of engineering.

But, according to the author of an recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, [note: you may need a subscription in order to read] he has no right to call himself “doctor”.

Why? 

Because he hasn’t delivered a baby.

That is the opinion of one Joseph Epstein, author and former lecturer at Northwestern University.  

The thrust of his opinion piece was to suggest, nay urge, soon-to-be First Lady Jill Biden to drop the “Dr.” from her name. 

Dr. Jill Biden holds an Ed.D.  She teaches at the community college level.  Her students refer to her as “Dr. B.” She plans to continue teaching once her husband takes office as President. 

For whatever reason, Epstein took it upon himself to tell her:  “Madame First Lady — Mrs. Biden — Jill — kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is not an unimportant matter.  Any chance you might drop the ‘Dr.’ before your name?”  

He goes on to say that “Dr.” “sounds and feels fraudulent” and also “a touch comic”. 

He disparages her dissertation title, “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs”.  Apparently, he’s not familiar with the usual titles of dissertations, which do not run along the lines of “Fifty Shades of Gray” or “Gone With the Wind” or “The Bluest Eye”. 

He states that he taught at Northwestern University for 30 years without a doctorate or advanced degree. 

Then, he goes on to lament about the “relaxation of standards in university education” and also about the decline in the “prestige of honorary doctorates”.  

He concludes by ordering Jill Biden to “please consider stowing [your title] at least in public, at least for now. Forget the small thrill of being Dr. Jill, and settle for the larger thrill of living for the next four years in the best public housing in the world as First Lady Jill Biden.”

So let’s see:  a man with only a B.A. who taught English at the university level for 30 years, who has not lectured at Northwestern since 2003, who does not even know Jill Biden, thinks he has the authority to tell her to drop a title from her name that she has honestly earned through hard work?  

I guess that means that since only those who have delivered children can call themselves “Dr.,” that means, first of all, that all teachers should forthwith refer to themselves as “Mr.” or “Ms.” or [first name]. 

Second of all, since not all doctors are OB/GYNs and therefore, not all doctors deliver babies, I guess psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, and most surgeons should forthwith drop the “doctor” from their names as well.  

The blowback from this article has been swift and punitive. Northwestern immediately stated that they did not agree with Epstein's opinion, and Northwestern's English department has removed Epstein's profile from its website. And if you Google "Joseph Epstein op-ed", you'll find a smattering of articles from NPR, Psychology Today, Chicago Tribune, and others roundly condemning the piece as "misogynistic" and "out of touch".

Dr. Jill Biden became an Ed.D. after 15 years of hard work while raising a family and supporting a husband.  I've gone to school while being a wife and mother, and it is not easy.  (Unlike Dr. Biden, I did not finish.  I attempted court reporting school, and due to a number of factors, had to stop.) 

Part of the reason for the blowback has been the tone of the article. Epstein referred to Dr. Biden as "kiddo" and told her to "forget the small thrill of being Dr. Jill" (did he intend to be a poet with that phrase?) and enjoy the "larger thrill" of being First Lady. This from a man who has never held public office and definitely will never be a First Lady. 

I've also seen the question asked:  Would such an article have been written about a man? Let's think about it:  When a woman becomes President, if she's married to a man who holds a doctorate and who is not a medical doctor, would he be ordered to "forthwith drop the doc" and enjoy the next four years as First Husband, or First Man, or whatever he will be called?

Somehow, I doubt it. 

Dr. Jill Biden earned her degree through hard work, stress, and figurative -- if not literal -- blood, sweat, and tears. (While I doubt the blood part, the sweat and the tears are probably true.)  When one has earned a degree, one has earned the right to use the title conferred by that degree.  When you receive a diploma, part of the wording on that diploma includes "all the rights and privileges thereof", including the right to use the title conferred upon you.

Oh, the man I referred to at the beginning of this article?

The son whose mother was told he'd never amount to anything?

The one who holds a doctorate in engineering?

Who traveled all over the world and taught at a university and worked for Honeywell?

Know how I know about all that?

He's my uncle.

I will proudly introduce him as Doctor Jerry Sergent, Ph.D.

In other words, Mr. Epstein, that's Doctor engineer to you!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

A bleak, colorful winter

I've been reading headlines predicting a bleak winter.  This is mainly due to COVID spikes and flu season coming upon us and the possibility of a "twindemic" of COVID and flu. 

A contentious election that some still want to contest isn't helping.

And election season is still not over in my state of Georgia, where voting will soon start for two Senate seats. My son recently said that the campaign ads were like a war.  He's not wrong. 

No one's mental health is good right now. 

I've thought about this "bleak winter" and I've come up with one antidote.

Color.

So recently, I fired the first shot in my one-woman war against this bleak winter.

I went to Walmart on Black Friday and bought an ugly Christmas sweater.

It's colorful, decorated with Christmasy decorations, and has a bunch of bells on it that jingle when you move.

Obnoxiously perfect, right?

Well, I think I will need to cut the bells off, because I want to wear this to church and constantly having bells jingle whenever you move is a little bit too obnoxious. 

2020 has been a long year.  It's been a bleak year. And winter is coming (nod to Game of Thrones).

One person may not be able to do much. But if I can bring some color to this bleak winter, I think it's a start.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

One cheeseburger, please

All Bruce Boynton wanted was a cheeseburger.

When I want a cheeseburger, it's easy enough. I go to my local McDonald's, or Burger King, or Wendy's, step up to the counter, and say, "I'd like a cheeseburger with fries and a Coke."

If I want a fancier cheeseburger, I'll probably go to Applebee's or Chili's. 

If I want to put forth the effort, I'll make one at home.

But Bruce Boynton wanted a cheeseburger . . . in 1958 . . . in a bus station in Richmond, Virginia . . . and he was African-American. And although federal law banned segregation in interstate travel, the bus station was segregated by color. 

So when Bruce Boynton, hungry and weary from bus travel, got off the bus, all he wanted was something to eat.   

But when he went to the part of the restaurant that was meant for blacks, he saw an eating area that, in his words, was "very unsanitary".

So he walked over to the white section, which he described as "clinically clean", and told the waitress, "I'll have a cheeseburger and tea."

The waitress left and came back with the manager.

His order for this hungry man, who just wanted a cheeseburger?

"Move!" accompanied by a racial slur.

Bruce Boynton was hungry. He wanted a cheeseburger. He did not want to eat it in a dirty restaurant. 

So, following the example of Rosa Parks, he said, "No." He pointed out that he was an American citizen with federal rights and thus was entitled to his cheeseburger and tea. As a law student at Howard University, Boynton knew his rights and knew the law.

It didn't matter.  Boynton was arrested and convicted on a charge of trespassing.

He appealed his case all the way up to the Supreme Court, with future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall as his counsel. In 1960, the SCOTUS, in Boynton v. Virginia, sided with Boynton, ruling that "when a bus carrier has volunteered to make terminal and restaurant facilities and services available to its interstate passengers as a regular part of their transportation, and the terminal and restaurant have
acquiesced and cooperated in this undertaking, the terminal and restaurant must perform these services without discriminations prohibited by the Act." 

Unfortunately, the Interstate Commerce Commission didn't enforce the SCOTUS ruling.  Jim Crow in the South continued.

So in 1961, groups of people climbed aboard interstate buses, the Greyhounds and the Trailways, and rode straight into the arms of white mobs waiting for them in places like Anniston, Alabama and  Birmingham, Alabama.

For exercising a right guaranteed to them by the Supreme Court of the United States, they were attacked and beaten severely. It took their blood on the floor -- the blood of John Lewis, C.T. Vivian, Stokely Carmichael (also known as Kwame Ture) and others -- on the floor of a bus station to finally get the right to ride a bus, a right that whites took for granted.

In 1961, the "whites only" and "coloreds only" signs came down in the waiting rooms of interstate bus lines.

Bruce Boynton died on Monday at the age of 83, in Selma, Alabama, his hometown. He put his legal education and experience to work as a civil rights attorney after initially being unable to get a law license in Alabama.

I only learned of Bruce Boynton, and his story, this morning, while scrolling through the pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the man who, just because he wanted a cheeseburger, ended up inspiring the movement that ended segregation in interstate travel and helped pave the way for the civil rights acts now enshrined in federal law.

As US District Judge Myron Thompson said in Boynton's obituary, "All he wanted was a cheeseburger, and he changed the course of history."

I will never look at cheeseburgers the same way again.

So, next time I go to a restaurant and say, "One cheeseburger, please," I hope to remember Bruce Boynton, a time when his order for a cheeseburger was met with "Move!", and toast his courage with a ground beef patty with cheese on top, tucked securely into a bun.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Sending home china and "hand grenades"

For a young American serviceman, on his own for the first time in his life, and lonely for his family, china was affordable.

So was a cuckoo clock.

Such gifts were affordable for an American in 1950's Japan and Korea.  

So my dad took part of his paycheck from the United States Army and plunked it down for a set of china to send to his mother, my Granny Mary, in Harlan, Kentucky.  

At another time, he paid for a cuckoo clock and sent it home to his mother.

I don't know what her reaction was to receiving the china.  I suspect she may have been pleased and happy that her son remembered her and cared enough about her to send a gift home.

I do know, thanks to one of my cousins, what her reaction was to receiving the cuckoo clock.

When unpacking the box that the clock came in, the first thing she unwrapped were the weights that made the clock operate properly.  Not knowing what they were, she shrieked and threw them out the window, screaming, "Good Lord, he's sent home hand grenades!"

Thankfully, the weights were retrieved and the cuckoo clock assembled.

Granny Mary's daughter, my aunt, kept that cuckoo clock.  

My father kept the china.

The reason he kept the china was because, when he got married, Granny Mary gave it to him and my mother because they were setting up housekeeping and they needed the dishes.

I grew up with that china.  We used it for special dinners, and I remember using the smaller plates to eat off of at times.  

Today, that china sits on a shelf on my own china cabinet.  It is the china I use for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

We will use that china this Thanksgiving.  My husband will cook either ham or turkey, depending on what we choose as our main dish, and we will use the large serving bowl to hold the ham or turkey while we carve and serve it. 

There will be three places at my table, because, in this season of COVID, it would not be wise to travel to family or for family to travel to us.  So it will be my husband, my son, and me at our table. 

Each place will have a china plate, decorated with painted violets, with our fancy silverware.

No, my father did not send home hand grenades to his mother.  But he did send home a treasure that his daughter still uses, a reminder of a time when he was alone and wanted a way to remind his family that he still remembered them.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.