Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 365

One year.

For me, the pandemic began on March 13, 2020, when my son had his first day out of school.  We didn't know then that he wouldn't be going back until August and that he'd have to finish the school year online. 

We didn't know that my husband wouldn't be going to the office for about two months, and that he'd end up taking over my office four days a week.

We didn't know that March 8th, 2020 would be the last time our church would meet together until November. 

We didn't know that masks would become a fashion statement or that people would judge others by whether they did or did not wear one. 

So many things we did not know. 

I began journaling the pandemic here on March 13, 2020, thinking that I would write every day and bring a healthy dose of snark to everyone's pandemic coping skills. How wrong I was. I can't remember when I stopped writing a daily pandemic journal. Snark is a good way to cope, depending on the target of your snark . . . but you can only be snarky for so long. 

My good intentions to spend more time on writing and house cleaning were eventually sabotaged by, well, just pandemic weariness. 

It's been a long 365 days, and like just about everyone, I'm weary. 

In the beginning, there was a pulling together, an attitude of, "We're all in this together." But that faded as we realized just how long and how serious this pandemic would be. 

Now, Zoom meetings and online church are the norm, social distancing is expected, a "drive-by" refers to a type of celebration rather than a shooting, and when you extend a fist to someone, it is not an assault but a greeting.

Throw in the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor (who died one year ago today) and George Floyd -- along with others -- and a very contentious presidential election, and you have a recipe for both angst and exhaustion.

Right now, I lean more towards the exhaustion end of the spectrum.

One thing that helps is remembering that no one on earth is unaffected by COVID. If you haven't had it, you know someone who has; if you don't know anyone who has had COVID, you still have dealt with empty shelves, standing six feet apart in a public place, businesses closed, businesses requiring masks . . .

Monday, my husband and I become eligible for the COVID vaccine. It's the one time in my life I look forward to getting two shots. 

Right now, I just confess to weariness. 

TEOTWAWKI, for those wondering, is an acronym in prepper circles that means "The End Of The World As We Know It." (And you thought it was just a title of an R.E.M. song.)

To be honest, this past year? 

It has been TEOTWAWKI.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Adventures in transitioning

My son's school bus pulled up in front of our house for the last time on Wednesday, February 10 at around 1:15 p.m.

When it pulled away, it took with it many of the services that we've depended on for over 18 years.

We have now entered into the land known as "transitioning".

Matthew, right now, is in sort of the "no-man's-land" between school and work. We're working right now with our Voc Rehab to (hopefully!) find him work. 

Part of transitioning means learning how to manage money, and as a first step in that direction, I set up an appointment for today to open a joint account with Matthew at the bank. 

While my intentions for teaching Matthew money management were good, my schedule management hit a snag. 

You see, today is a Tuesday.

Tuesdays are the days my husband goes into the office.

With our car.

Which I didn't remember until I walked into our garage to manage laundry and saw that said garage was empty. 

To quote either Astro from The Jetsons or Scooby-Doo, "ruh-rho".

It crossed my mind that maybe I should reschedule the appointment.

But then I remembered another part of transitioning that is important:  learning how to use public transportation.

So I decided that this would be the best time to introduce Matthew and me to the wonderful world of Uber. 

I had the app, I've just never used it before. But, with a few taps, I figured out what I was doing and, to make a long story short, both of us were safely transported to and from the bank by two separate Uber drivers. 

Inside the bank, we were helped by a very nice young woman who got us set up with a joint account. 

I don't expect to be able to problem-solve as easily as I did today. But it was an, shall we say, interesting introduction to the world of transitioning! 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

When character no longer counts

In April, 1987, then presidential candidate Gary Hart, responding to rumors of marital infidelity, threw down the gauntlet.  He challenged the press to "follow me around".

The Miami Herald took up the gauntlet and soon discovered his relationship with a young woman, Donna Rice.  

Not long afterwards, Gary Hart quit the presidential race . . . only to reverse course several months later with the declaration, "Let the people decide; I'm back in the race!"

During those days, I heard people asking the question, "Does character really matter when you're running for public office?"

I asked myself, "Why is this even a question?  Of course character counts!"

Apparently, many Americans did not feel the same way, because in 1992, even amid rumors of past infidelity, Bill Clinton was elected to the Presidency, and then re-elected in 1996.  

In 1998, the Monica Lewinsky scandal blew up.  

At that time, certain evangelical Christian leaders -- including Franklin Graham and James Dobson -- stood up and declared, "Yes, character counts in a President!"

Some of those same leaders, in 2016, reversed course and supported Donald Trump for president, despite his known affairs with at least two women and his disgusting remarks about women that were leaked to the media.  

Did character count then?

Apparently not.  

This is what happens when you are so fearful of one particular candidate that you end up supporting the other, despite the character flaws that you condemned so forcefully when the candidate was not the one you supported.

There are Presidents who have done things for this country and have been adulterers and have committed other sins during their time in office.  Thomas Jefferson is now well-known for his dalliances (some would say, rape of) with Sally Hemings. John F. Kennedy left of trail of infidelity behind him.  And FDR's relationship with Lucy Mercer Rutherford is also well-documented.  

As many things as they did for this country, for me, their legacy is forever tainted by the way they treated their wives.  Or, as in Jefferson's case, the women around them (I say that because Jefferson's wife had died by the time he was in the White House.)  

Should a person who has committed adultery -- or, for that matter, any other sin -- be permanently barred from running for public office?

I don't know.  I can only tell you what I think:  If someone has committed adultery, if they have repented, if they have gotten help, if they have remained faithful to their spouse since the days of that adultery, then no, I don't think that should permanently bar them from public office. People do sin. People do repent of sin. God does forgive sin. 

What I resent is the cries of, "Yes, character counts!" from respected Christians only to have those same Christians turn around and say, "Yeah, the guy has rotten character, but look at King Cyrus! God used him!" Or, "King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and God used him!" Or, "He wasn't elected to be our pastor!" 

Number one, the prophesy about King Cyrus was fulfilled when he allowed the Israelites to go home after 70 years of exile. That prophecy was not intended to be extrapolated onto a future President of the United States.

Number two, although God did use David after he sinned, there are two things to keep in mind:  a) David repented (see Psalm 51) and b) David paid a very steep price for his sins. The son he conceived with Bathsheba died. His daughter Tamar was raped by her half-brother Amnon, and David did nothing about it. David's son Absalom attempted to seize the throne. Absalom raped ten of David's concubines, and then was ultimately killed by David's own general, Joab.

No President is perfect.  We all sin.  Presidents sin. 

But what we saw on Wednesday afternoon unfold on our TV screens is the ultimate result of what happens when we decide that character no longer counts in a President. 

We end up getting a President who is unwilling to concede an election until absolutely forced to, who continues to propagate a false narrative about a stolen election, and who whips a crowd up into such a frenzy that they feel free to storm the US Capitol, with Congress inside, and break into the House and Senate chambers in order to take selfies and trash the place. 

We decided way back in 1987 that character no longer mattered in a President. 

We are now reaping the consequences of that decision.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

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.