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.

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An ambience of serenity despite. 
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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

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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.