July 5, 2017

HI Carole,

Posting image from a few weeks ago, June 2017, Danny amazing! He is working on a series in Houston, here now for a short while.  Hesitate to say, 'shooting' when mean video-ing  because of of the nonsense going on, you never know.  Josh was here, too, didn't make it into image, Miguel jumped in between at last minute, six-year-old Will in front, wearing a Great Smoky Mountains National Park hat bought for Miguel years earlier.  Sam took sitting from couch across. Same sofa as when  you were last here ... OH, Carole ...

***

Slippery slope: USA is a super mess with demented bully Trump tweeting and lying, Trump can't keep his own stories straight. Frightening: false truths,  "Alternative facts" is a phrase used by U.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017, ...

Hacked election, first time ever,  Mr. Misogynist, major religious discrimination, travel bans without precedent — grandmothers aren't close relatives.  Russian $$$$ ties and influence, attempting to undo healthcare, Medicaid, climate stuff, is horrific.

Tweeting Trump's lawyers all over the place, unlike anything previous ... greed beyond the imaginable. Heartless and cruel. Shameful. Embarrassing.

A crass administration without dignity. The good ole boys, unfit Trump, and Trumpeters, bulldog snarl-gritty. Dangerous. Life taking.

How our father played you.

***

Revisionist History Alert: An image of Amelia Earhart photo revealed. She and navigator died in the Marshall Islands ... 80 years ago. Link as of July 5, 2017.

Mother's Day, day after 2017

Hi my love, my forever schwester, always missing you, remembering .... you with flowers for us.

Spoke with your boys, our boys, Danny mostly on the day, he called from Galveston, working on a TV series, should be back in Miami in few weeks for a short time, has free hotel points, wants to travel world, some of it, then back to Houston for work. Is a fine job for him.

Josh today, he's still writing, has received good feedback.

William had first sleepover Saturday night, was grand. Sam made pancakes Sunday morning, needed to deliver William to his mother for the day.  Celeste sent stone crabs for Hanukkah on Mother's Day, a fantastic treat, so yummy. In season now ....

I donated our Mother's wedding china to Goodwill today, someone will appreciate the set, I never used, and finally no longer felt obligated to keep.  Kids passed on china, not their thing, children don't want that sort of stuff anymore.  Have so much decluttering to do, a houseful.

Continue attempting our book, still angst writing it, even with speculative added .... the sections on Mom are a hoot, the gift she left us — copy for our manuscript.

XOXOXOX

Passover, April 10, 2017

Hi my sweetest love, very sad without you. Missing you dearly, what year shall I focus on, a lifetime? ...

Will be a small gathering, Curt, hubby dearest with a new job, Danny in Texas on a project until June,  Josh here but working. He signed up for an author read, good for him! Celeste and Miguel will arrive, hoping Sam, too. Grandson William is away on cruise with other family, spring break.  He was supposed to spend the night Saturday, this first sleepover here, but barfed instead, red berries beforehand. He is the sweetest 6-year-old kid, and Sam is doing a fabulous daddy job.

Have the retro kitschy metal Seder plate Little Genie's dad gave you .... green and gold with molded images, not sure what will put on, haven't the official stuff.

Little Genie quit her teaching job, after earning a Masters, is doing a rodeo of flea markets! Sound familiar!

Love you always.

April 11, next morning, we broke matzos together, no Seder, and I am whipped, chicken didn't cook, must be me, not the new oven!  ...

Hey, Carole

Love you and so missing you .... keeping forgetting how to sign in, google knows, had birthday candles.  Can you imagine the billions of people born today, all seeing candles???

Big tiff between youtube and google, more artificial intelligence ...  social marketing, ads, fake news, revenue stream, the goings-on after your time but the same greed.

AI propagating itself, showing its hand getting schmuckola into white house, lower case on purpose. Schmuckola there and we are so screwed. Bots, cybots, hacked!

More developed than Watergate.

Not to mention climate change.

Gave grandson Miguel a copy of Brave New World, hope he reads, will be 13 yrs-old in a few weeks.

Have a blurred pic from Monday with near teen Miguel, adorable six-yr-old William and old farty Nana. Gotta figure how to transfer from other computer ... not i-clouded, or whatever the word.  Missed Josh and Danny, they were working, not a biggie, the dirty one, 69 ...  true dirty, heartbreaking grime is not having you at my side.

Pussyhat Rebellion!!!!

Oh Carole, you'd have love it — Pussyhat Rebellion!!!!

Russian Revolution, 1917
Trump's American and the Women's March, 2017

4:54 PM

January 21 by Rachel Weiner and Aaron Davis, Washington Post

Crowds start to disperse, but still massive

RELATED COVERAGE

• Marchers Pour Into Washington to Pour Out Their Hearts JAN. 21, 2017 
  
• 
  In Trump’s Hometown, a Clear Message of Defiance From Women JAN. 21, 2017 
  
• 
  Women’s March Highlights as Huge Crowds Protest Trump: ‘We’re Not Going Away’ JAN. 21, 2017 
  
• 
  How Marches in Washington Have Shaped America JAN. 21, 2017

ON NPR
Pussyhats! on NPR (article)

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/21/510997192/with-pussyhats-liberals-get-their-own-version-of-the-red-trucker-hat

Way Past

Hi Carole,

An FPL guy was here, electric pole placement for Pinecrest Floods development still without drainage. Large ficus will go, might miss, uncertain about African Tulip tree, the parrots love it, would miss if were cutdown or out. Cool species of palm tree will stay.  Very old oaks replanted in front of flooding field, Pinecrest PLAce, didn't make it. IS so nuts, no drainage and with water rising from underneath. A wall holding all the water inside the luxury home plat, at least not spilling over the berm into our yard. Again, water rising from underneath ... . Anyway, the project manager who came looked like our past; cousin Robbie, his name Rob, too. I flashed with you at my side more than half a century ago — yesterday.

I called Fran, in RI, left a message, we small talk every few months, have not seen each in ages unlikely we will again. Poor Fran.

Robbie died about a year after you passed, age 56 or 57. He'd completed a genealogy that I never received, he must have known. I believe he left behind two college age children perhaps like yours at the time ... time ....

Love and hugs to you with your glimmer, and glint.

PS: Your former  professor, Frank  Bidart, has a poem in the New Yorker, Jan 23, 2017. You'd love it, Mourning What We Though We Were, a rise against Trump, the cover, too. Titled, At the Wheel by Barry Blitt, Sardonic.  Will try to capture and post. Ignorance, the poverty of mind amazing.

Current: from NYT

WHITE HOUSE MEMO

Trump Lashes Out as Approval Ratings Dip to Record Lows

By PETER BAKER

President-elect Donald J. Trump will take office with less popular support than any new president in modern times, an array of polls show.

Earth Sets Temperature Record for 3rd Straight Year

By JUSTIN GILLIS and JOHN SCHWARTZ 10:30 AM ET

• It is the first time in the modern era of global warming data that temperatures have blown past the previous record three years in a row.
• The data show that temperatures are heading toward levels that many believe will pose a profound threat to civilization.

January 3, 2017, your 67 birthday

It is the worst of times, the best of times, the most appalling of times. All the more anguished without you here.

On the bright side, cousins are getting together today, the younger ones who have not met, or did so long ago, they forgot, one Hanukkah here perhaps four years ago. Sam and 5-year-old William are picking up your Danny, Josh out of town, and heading up to see Joy and her three kids, ages 10-15, Celeste and 12-year-old Miguel going too. Superb they are getting together.

For Hanukkah, I decorated inside of our fireplace with your Peruvian Ayacucho clay steeple / village folk art piece and surrounded it in tiny white lights. Through the fireplace screen, looked like snow falling, way gentle and sweet.

***
An ambience of serenity despite. 
***

Hello Carole, began message in newer computer, emailed to older one to post. CAn’t keep track of all passwords so it is  Pinecrest Floods blog entry from one, to our Extralove.com and this.  

Passwords, speaking of them — our US electorate system was hijacked, RIGGED, HACKED, INFILTRATED toyed with, — our entire supposedly constitutional democracy - poof. Up in air. Dirty air, climate change a hoax.

Undone by people  like my 40-year-old daughter.  That hurts. She voted for Clarabelle Trump, the alt-right fascist, so scary that our once mighty press, now fearful, avoids the F term, inventing the alt-right synonym instead. The mood is gloomy, despairing. 

Earlier today: With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Hobble Independent Ethics Office, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.html, after NYT wrote an article about kleptocracy : a government with corrupt rulers (kleptocrats) that use their power to exploit the people and natural resources of their own territory in order to extend their personal wealth and political power.

House GOPers Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office

"House Republicans, overriding their top leaders, voted on Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail." 
Eric Lipton reports for the New York Times January 2, 2017. 

"House Republicans Vote To Rein In Independent Ethics Office" (Washington Post)

Even if it doesn't stick, the fact that they tried, wanted to. Attempted whittling of eliminate independent ethics office.  Our renegade Trump White House, the entire entourage / family /clan in on the take.***

I realize my daughter works hard, an ER nurse dealing with matters of life and death on a daily basis, comes home and seeks out mindless crap — the Kardashian sisters, glitz and big boobs. Believing her desire for distraction, entertainment, is the only way I’ll manage to excuse. Make peace. How could she?

How old was our father when he changed from a social democrat to a rabid Republican?  The Nixon era— would that place him age 41 or 44? Not sure of his birth year, won't bother looking, timing close enough. Then I wonder about genetics, the kickstart point, Celeste and her grandfather, Julius, close in age. 

Latest on Nixons’s corruiopn to rig an election: 1/2/17: Nixon Tried to Spoil Johnson’s Vietnam Peace Talks in ’68, Notes Show, didn’t want war to stop because if would hurt his chances for the presidency. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html

• **

I am so embarrassed, distressed, all the more because her son, my 12-year-old grandson is brilliant. And Trump’s greed, his misogyny, bullying, hateful ways are far from exemplary, certainly not attributes / values to  embrace. I won't be around to see the play-out years ahead, those dystopian sci-fi predictions reality.  

Internet  freedom corralled, the plutocracy ruling class — burnt crumbs for us, we the remaining 99%. And atop this, my daughter's inability to discern Facebook fake news from journalism a gut-wrenching shame.

Carole, remember that 1990’s unit on media and propaganda you developed for your students at FIU? I have a copy somewhere here. The medium has changed so drastically since then you’d not recognize it. 

If still viable, the links and copy below from Wikipedia.

Citizenfour Citizenfour is a 2014 documentary film directed by Laura Poitras, concerning Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. The film had its US premiere on October 10, 2014, at the New York Film Festival and its UK premiere on October 17, 2014, at the BFI London Film Festival. The film features Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, and was co-produced by Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, and Dirk Wilutzky, with Steven Soderbergh and others serving as executive producers. Citizenfour received critical acclaim upon release, and was the recipient of numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Oscars.

Killswitch Killswitch is a documentary film about the battle for control over the Internet. It made its international debut, playing alongside Citizenfour at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in November 2014.^[4] In 2015, it screened on Capitol Hill, as well as film festivals on four continents (Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America). On September 13, 2016 Killswitch was released on iTunes movies, and within 24 hours it was trending as a top 5 on their documentary page. Lawrence Lessig, Tim Wu, and Peter Ludlow frame the story of two young hackers, Aaron Swartz and Edward Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. Their lives parallel one another as they free information and take on the system, putting them directly in the cross-hairs of some of the most powerful interests in the world. Swartz leads the charge in defeating the Stop Online Piracy Act, and pays a heavy price, but not before he challenges his mentor, Lawrence Lessig, to take up his call and lead a crusade to restore our democracy. Snowden is forced to flee the country and ponder his next move.^[9][10][11]

The Third Reich. Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over nearly all aspects of life. … Racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. 

Oct 20 2016

Early morning
Profound loss and its yearning

WE were together in dreams, supposed to meet someplace at 3 PM but I was delayed looking for parking and a bottle of wine, wine I know little about yet searching boutique deli stores on dug up streets realizing was late and you drove up to find me in a 1950ish Buick with a buffed silver hood hood, painted to look that way, maybe silver like clouds ... you wore a sweater top and pants, dijon mustardy color, looked great on you even as off to me — maybe dijon to go with wine at outside cafe? — you warm and cuddly and thin and we hugged and hugged outside because you'd found me looking for my car and we hugged-cuddled more and more when you stepped out of the driver's seat, (others, too, in back?) and you were thin and looked lovely and we snuggled in the plush warmth of each others arms before we were no longer there.

October 19, 2016, my dear sister ...

Hi my love,

Your, our, boys were here last night, Josh from his Spain sojourn, Danny from Houston, both back to Houston for work there. They'll be in Miami for December holidays, Hanukkah and Christmas together this year.

Was wonderful, unexpected visit. Sam with Will, 5, Josh and Danny, and Curt. Celeste and Miguel, 12, couldn’t make it ….missed them.

And always, forever missing you.

Danny is so talented, had no clue, he in a 1930’s James Cagney voice played with William all night, motions and words like SNL skits, hilarious! Taught rhythm and some piano, too. Stinted dead bear! Ran around outside with doggie Britney joining in.

Have pics to post, not sure how, in other computer. Ah, figured out!!! Good sister.

Carole, on your yahrzeit.  Fourteen years without you.

Our kids grew up, during and while,

the ache of your absence remains.

Love, Hope

Images below from October 18, 2016 at this Nana's house.

Yom Kippur, 2016

Hello my Carole,

Eyes on your picture on the fireplace mantle. Loving and missing.

Sam with Will, 5, and Celeste with Miguel, 12, the great-nephews you never met were here Monday, condensed High Holidays into one night in-between.  Plus Curt and I.  Josh and Danny both away, hope they'll be here in December, Hanukkah and Christmas together this year.

I'd set the table with real plates and a nice cloth without mentioning the occasion  and Miguel asked if this was the holiday for the shofar. William asked what a shofar was I skipped the whole megillah,  saying it was the Jewish New Year and in old-fashioned times there were no party blowers like nowadays and people used shofars instead. The kids blew and blew.

*

Hurricane Matthew missed, thank the cosmos, maybe you out there, too.

Oven just beeped for frozen dinner pizza on Yom Kippur. Treat of the day was babysitting William here, no school.  We had so much fun, made banana splits, his first. Played pirates, he did space puzzle practically by himself, 100 pieces! Ate and laughed.

Image: PUMPKIN cookie with shofar
Miguel and William, October 2016.