Really enjoying teaching standup on Mondays and Thursdays. My 25 students are engaged and having fun!
Grateful to be a caregiver for Patty and Muriel on Mondays and Fridays.
Love my life with Gary.
Here's what depresses me. We spent eight days in Amsterdam. No homeless. No litter. No guns. Safe to walk anywhere. Everyone has basic heath insurance. The country has an aggressive policy to cut greenhouse gas emissions and combat sea level rise. People are HAPPY.
Then we return to the US -- and to "Don't Say Gay," 12-year-olds forced to have their rapists' babies, daily gun violence, mentally ill on the streets, Trump fascism, political extremism and gridlock, an overtly right-wing Supreme Court, calcified political institutions, evangelical Christians who seek to enforce their often-absurd beliefs on others, and a major political party that will not even accept the science of climate change.
The United States is not a failed state, but it has failed to solve the great crises that face us: gun violence, lack of universal healthcare, the growing gap between rich and poor, the scourge of a fossil-fuel economy, human rights for all, voting rights, you name it.
At best, we have put band-aids on gaping wounds. And it's costing us dearly -- in lives and dollars.
At least the Democratic Party tries to address these crises and put forth solutions. What does the GOP offer? If Ron DeSantis really wanted to solve the immigration issue, he would have voted for the 2013 comprehensive immigration bill when he was a member of the House.
More depressing: Workable solutions have been enacted in so many other CAPITALIST countries. The Netherlands has always been a vibrant capitalist state. Prime Minister Mark Rutte's People's Party has been in power for 12 years. It's a center-right party (which translates to center-left in this country).
The free-market is a centerpiece of the nation's economics, but common-sense regulation means everyone has the necessary building blocks for a healthy and happy life. All Dutch citizens have basic, and high-quality, healthcare. If they want add-ons, they buy those in the free market. Guns are outlawed, except for those who must have permits for hunting or sport (competitive) shooting. You get the picture.
And here's another feature of Rutte's party that I love: Non-discrimination is given more importance than the exercise of religion.
Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Canada and most European nations have little or no gun violence. Universal healthcare, including mental health, is the norm.
By so many quality-of-life measurements, America fails to measure up.
There will be some bright spots for Democrats in the midterms, but Republicans are going to win races by exploiting fear with no real solutions. Like Trump, most GOP candidates are grifters and institutional arsonists. Unfortunately, we are barreling toward a "democracy" in deep peril.