Books, Reviews, Short Stories, Authors, Publicity, a little poetry, music to complement...and other stuff including politics, about life... "Books, Cats: Life is Sweet..."
Suddenly a beautiful space in my life was reduced to a jarring juxtaposition of God’s peace and John’s piece. What fresh hell was this?
Before I share directly from the book, I wanted to say a few words about my own interest.
I have a gun, here, in my home, somewhere. But I live in the country... So when I bought my cabin from my brother-in-law, who was the executor after the deaths of his parents, I wasn't surprised to find guns here.
There are many in my family and in the area that hunt.
Kole specifically states that he is not talking about those who use guns for hunting, or even for competition... That has happened for hundreds of years...
But that was before
Make America Great Again
I had retired, spending time working on my new homeland, but I also had started watching news channels...
Sandy Hook was the worst for me...grade school children... That town continues to fight for gun control... One party refuses to support...
Additionally, this book merges with the part that started me on my own campaign to read and talk about what is happening to our nation.
What I think about the past is far different from those who created that slogan of wanting to go back...
You all know that already
But when the Evangelical church supported a criminal for president, I was shocked and confused
I still am and this is the first book I've seen or heard about that merges the two most important issues for me personally.
It has already split my family
Which makes it even more confusing.
Because I know what Jesus said about our children...HIS Children
At least the group has broken off and now call themselves Christian Nationalists
This man says there is no place for gun violence within the life of a Christian...
I will be reading this entire book by reprioritization
because I "really" need to learn more for my own understanding of God's Truth
I believe this Book will provide a major step...
I'm so glad I found this song I wanted to use, by one of my favorite Christian singers. He was the choir leader when I sang in a Billy Graham Revival so many years ago, I can't remember when...LOL
But I'll never forget Shea's magnificent voice...
~~~
My Highlights--So Far
Most troubling of all: their inexplicable fervor for firearms. Aggressively promoting the right to own and carry an instrument designed specifically to take a human life felt like a betrayal of everything Christianity promised...
And it was, for a few days. My own church dimmed the sanctuary lights and convened a somber prayer meeting. We wept for Sandy Hook’s children and our own, and we cried out for healing and mercy. We, like so many in the aftermath of such tragedies, sent our thoughts and prayers to the families and survivors of the tragedy. And then we spoke of it no more. That’s how it is with “thoughts and prayers”: the fleeting good intentions with which the proverbial road to hell is paved. Such words absolve us from doing anything to make sure such a horrible event never happens again. If you really give a damn, you do something.
My exodus from evangelicalism was triggered by a revelation so personally startling, it’s what roused me to launch the investigation you’re about to read. On a sweltering weeknight in 2016, I was rehearsing onstage with my Massachusetts megachurch worship band when I noticed my bass player, an earnest and affable man I’ll call John, stop to loosen his guitar strap. “Too much lasagna for supper?” I teased. “Nah,” he said. “It’s just that the strap is rubbing against my 9-millimeter.” The truth took a few seconds to sink in. John had come to practice with a SIG Sauer semiautomatic handgun. I must have looked as dumbfounded as I felt, because he quickly assured me he had a concealed carry permit. But that’s not what had me so shaken. Moments earlier, we’d been singing about divine mercy and grace. Suddenly a beautiful space in my life was reduced to a jarring juxtaposition of God’s peace and John’s piece. What fresh hell was this? Not long thereafter, I realized, to my horror, that John wasn’t the only one showing up armed at the altar. John’s wife carried a small-caliber pocket pistol in her purse, and several of the men in the congregation possessed concealed firearms. They claimed to do so under the auspices of a church “security ministry,” but it looked and felt more like vigilantism to me. I left that congregation, but the guns stayed behind. They’re surely still there, spirited into the sanctuary every Sunday, cleaned and oiled and loaded and ready for Lord knows what.
But here in the United States, it starts with winning over the hearts and minds of the 60 million white evangelicals—many of them armed—who are reshaping the nation’s political landscape from the front lines of the culture wars.
Like everyone else, I’m struggling to practice what I’m preaching in these pages, starting with Jesus’s all-encompassing command: Love your neighbor. I merely wish to hold up a mirror to America’s most devout people, who mystifyingly and stubbornly cling to a belief that the answer to our gun problem is more guns, and ask a single piercing question: Why? Why do people who claim to follow a man called the Prince of Peace devote themselves so religiously to ensuring military-grade weapons are easier to buy than some forms of birth control? How did a group of Christians who claim to be staunchly pro-life come to so warmly embrace guns, whose primary purpose is to kill? When will we vote for politicians who will summon the courage to enact commonsense, lifesaving gun measures—simple things like universal background checks—that surveys consistently show most Americans want? To my many evangelical friends, who have the political clout to change the country’s trajectory on gun violence, I offer an olive branch and a beatitude of my own:
Blessed are the kingmakers, for they can save lives.
What you’d surely never suspect in a congregation like this of several hundred rapturous souls: Dozens of guns, maybe more; holstered and hidden from view but no less lethal. These are my people. Or they were, before I realized how many of them are armed to the teeth.
It’s no secret that America is awash in weapons. In fact, there are far more guns than Americans themselves: 120 firearms for every 100 citizens, the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey says.1 That’s 393 million firearms in total, not counting police or military weapons or untraceable homemade “ghost guns,” in a nation of 330 million people. That’s nearly twice as many guns per capita as the Falkland Islands, the second-ranked nation on the global rankings, with sixty-two guns for every hundred people. Every year, 3.6 million babies are born in this country, and 22 million guns are sold. That’s six guns for each of those newborns. There could be even more. Since 1899, more than 494 million guns have been manufactured for the US market alone, according to federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives data, and more of those weapons than you might think could still be in circulation.
Good Morning... I've just had an interesting situation develop when I went to YouTube to get video for The View where I learned about a new book, which I wanted to announce today...
I was looking for another video to add, and I found one which I'm including...as a comparison... You'll see why... Please take the time to listen to all of his presentation... This young man is obviously trying to make it as a commentator. In my opinion, he is failing. He is disruptive, dismissive, provokes opinions, and obviously believes just what he is saying... Without a complete understanding of exactly where we are in today's world... It's funny, many have been talking about the young men in our country that seem to be trying to find their way, confused... Perhaps that is the case, but he certainly didn't present himself as being confused. Which is the sad part of all of this...
The Country has become so divided--on purpose--that it is disheartening... Not only did he attack the author, but he criticized the whole View group. A show which happens to be an award-winning, highest-rated talk show on television and has been on TV, I'll wager, longer than this young man has been alive... I could be wrong, but I really see no need to check facts on this one... The commentator gives you the opportunity to decide for yourself... So I did... My response to his rant is also provided below.
Folks, there is one thing I try to do... I back up my opinions with facts and documentation whenever possible, because we are in a time when TRUTH is being used as a weapon, and we know who is doing it... and Why... Want to compare this man's views, I recommend you pull up the posts by Harold Michael Harvey, who is an ongoing legal contributor here... or other contributors, so you can see that there are others who are also voicing their words with the world...
Government shut down, many people not getting paid except Congress and ICE... While Trump continues to fire people without cause or notice...against normal policy
This as an actual event... Infrastructure projects approved take time... Now, the president is freezing money for those projects already approved in the previous administration. Seeing this I'll go ahead and share the normal process approval for capital projects take.
Normally, an individual unit of a larger functional group--compare the federal government versus an individual university. Each of those institutions would be required to have developed a Campus Master Plan for the future. Based upon that plan, priorities would be established and approved by the Board of Regents (or Congress)
Then I would have been responsible for providing facilities need information of what would be required, for instance, for a new classroom building or the total renovation of, say Woodburn Hall, in which I participated in the capital project...
Thereafter the architects for the campus would develop specific campus location, possible design and estimated cost and total square footage. That would then be massaged by the Planning VP under the President until the Cabinet would approve that project for priority.
Then it would be submitted to the Board of Regents (Congress) for capital funding... That would be compared with all other requests from other institutions, such as Marshall University in southern WV. (Or between the Secretary of Education versus the Secretary of Commerce and Trade, for instance)
Only upon funding, and actual transfer of funds can the institution begin to hire an architect and then construction company... That would be reviewed via our office to have all facilities units do their specialized review; e.g., we had an Environmental Health and Safety group on campus, responsible for evaluating the safety of all facilities. Accessibility issues would be reviewed by another unit...
Once the architect had been hired, presented a proposed architectural drawing, then authorization for construction would begin... Bidding, purchasing, etc., dependent on project.
I would have been involved since one of my responsibilities was to ensure all activities related to class activity was also being planned for within the proposed construction projects. We were working on a muti-semester activity that could fall over several semesters or years, based upon the size of the project and final plans... If an entire building were being renovated, major scheduling changes were required over years!
My office was then also responsible for evaluating work on the project, considering potential change orders if something didn't match the original scope of the project...
That continued for years until the project was finally accepted...
No wonder no other president in recent years, except Biden, finally, successfully pushed to get approval of major infrastructure needs for bridges, water contaminated areas, etc.
At some point I picked up on a project site video
where President Trump's name was listed, taking claim for Biden's projects approved under the previous administration.
Just like Trump never proceeded to handle the Covid distribution process which was the major part of the need to get the vaccine to the patients, and which Biden had to quickly initiate and delegate direction... Millions were dying while people started being urged to quarrel over wearing masks!
This to me is one of the problems in a multi-party system where competition is divided based upon how people vote! Or Not!
Corporations and, of course, any organization, including universities do not dare do this...
because
Nothing would ever get done!
As Witness the close of the government by the Congressional Leader...and the freezing of infrastructure projects by the President. Doesn't get any clearer while chaos is reigning NOW
Power grabbing by one party no matter which, stops all work already committed by the previous administration...
What a way to run a country...
And when a leader is elected that does not have an agenda set by the nation...but specifically for a "mandate--project 2025" from the rich
nothing will ever be accomplished
Chaos exists always... Millions--7 to be exact--protest!
And, remember, most of the "capital" for the government comes from our paying taxes...
In case you didn't pick up in the videos on the discussion related to the blasting outside of the White House causing a poor image that even the republicans are responding to news reporters is occurring. I personally think it's one more brick being laid for Trump's "coffin" which will be built one day... I've already reviewed steps that I had to take to instigate multi-million dollar capital project for a university, let me just again spotlight, that the planning takes months if not years due to the important process needed for state owned, or federal in this case, buildings... It is quite obvious all that was bypassed for the ballroom... again breaking the laws of our land... BTW, did you hear Trump was demanding $230M dollars from the DOJ...the exact cost of the Ballroom, rumors are mounting that the private money was not forthcoming? I wonder why...
But I digress... This book is an important one for those who believe, as I do, that Biden should have continued to run for office. After all, if something had happened during his term, the vice-president would have stepped into the position anyway, right? This book especially covers the fact that black congressmen and voters as they continued to travel, begged Biden to stay his course... It was quite clear after reading just the first two sections of this book, that, as an individual who worked along side Biden, Karine knows what she is talking about... And it was not the citizens who rejected Joe, even after one debate, which is crazy to do, of course--it was those in power in the party. Even George Clooney spoke out... What could he possibly have known that we who followed the president's many programs being approved and implemented, could have caused that change. Karine's heart was broken as she watched the desertion begin... I was floored when Pelosi did as well. While getting things done, she was never much of a public speaker as head of Congress, so why turn on Joe? Just my opinion of course, LOL.
Anyway, I'm providing a brief excerpt as well to give you an opportunity to check out her writing as you consider getting the book. I've decided not to take the time to review it because there are going to be lots of people doing so. I like to spend my time on writers who do it for a living... If I see something of political importance, I'll share in another post.
The most important thing from the first chapters I hadn't grasped was the timing of the debate... Not only was he traveling too much during that time period--he always felt doing the job was first priority... And debating this particular opposition surely was not a priority for him... In any event, I learned that the court case, which would never have happened for the average individual, for his son had begun. If you are familiar with Biden, in all ways, you will have realized that his family life was the most important "personal" thing in his life... To have to debate a man who had caused the publicity and constant news coverage of his son, surely would have been a personal problem. Me, when I didn't like one of my supervisors, I would walk across the street rather than have to speak to him during my lunch hour... LOL... Yeah, I do things like that, but at least I know and have thought about it enough to be okay with my decision... His office was right beside mine and he'd lean back smoking a cigar, spreading the stinky smoke throughout the small building... Yeah, he was that type of individual... 'Nuf said...
So let's take a look at the two videos. I watch The View daily, even if it's recorded and watched the next day. Having multiple opinions by women who are diversified is important to me and is very much needed... Hearing opinions of those representing all parties: Democrat, Independent and Republican is an important aspect of this successful program... The respect given to this program has brought, through the many years, just about any important political figure making news at any given time. They have a choice; most gladly accept because they know the coverage of the show...
My Response posted on YouTube
Ok, Ok, it's easy to look backward if you weren't there... Whether Joe Biden talked directly to YOU as with the ramblings from Trump daily... Frankly I'm disappointed with your coverage. Please feel free to visit my blog and you will find much info related to the activities of the Biden Administration... He was acting on our behalf...continuously...give me a break...you have failed to differentiate between the reality of what is happening versus what you FEEL... I can clearly tell you have not been involved through the last decade, so your perspective is...frankly...flawed... That is not critical, what it means is that you are clearly biased... Period... I disagree based upon my reading of many books... what is your info based upon... It is opinionated. I try to document... as well... I feel sorry for you... when you close your mind and don't take the time to find out both sides... you are failing as a commentator in my opinion. God Bless you... God asks that we take our minds and listen... It is obvious that you are not listening and trying to understand, so much so that I figure you have a problem with women in power... YOU are lying... I'll be using your video today to show the difference between two videos... Again... Open your ears, your mind and try to stop being prejudice against women. It is clear that you are...and it's to me, sad... because I know from where you've learned all that you've said... Talk to your mother. Maybe she'll share a little more from her perspective... God Bless you in finding your way...
~~~
CHAPTER 1
The Takedown
Is This My Party?
When the president of the United States addresses the nation from the Resolute Desk, it’s because he has something of profound importance to say. It was from behind that desk, sculpted from the splinters of a British ship, that Ronald Reagan shared his grief when the space shuttle Challenger erupted in flames. It was where President George W. Bush spoke to the fears felt by millions after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. And it was where President Joe Biden sat on July 24, 2024, to let the world know he wouldn’t seek a second term.
“I revere this office, but I love my country more,” he said, his family and a few members of his senior staff standing nearby. “I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So, I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation.”
Not since 1968, when Lyndon B. Johnson refused to be his party’s nominee, had a sitting president decided not to seek reelection. Those who vie for the presidency are often called narcissists because you must have a staggering sense of self to believe you deserve to lead the free world. But whatever ego it took for Biden to reach the pinnacle of power, he put it aside to patch together a party on the verge of imploding. The duty he felt to pursue four more years in the White House was replaced by a sense of responsibility to exit the race so he could preserve the democracy he’d sworn to protect.
It was a historic moment, and as one of the few people given the honor to be in the Oval Office that day, it was one of the most patriotic acts I’d ever seen. We all knew it was coming. The president first broke the news three days earlier when he released a letter to the nation saying he was ending his campaign. Later that day, in a message posted on the social media site X (formerly Twitter), he endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the party’s nominee.
Still, his decision must have felt like whiplash to some of the more than 14 million primary voters who said they wanted Biden atop the presidential ticket for a second time. (Including Me)
I know it felt like that to me. As White House press secretary, it was my job to speak for the president, and for three grueling weeks, from the day Biden gave a halting performance on an Atlanta debate stage to the moment he officially dropped out of the race, I insisted to an incredulous press corps that he wasn’t going anywhere. That’s what I’d been told. That’s what I believed. But I was also aware of something ugly surging behind the scenes. There were whispers, phone calls, texts. A campaign was underway to push the president out of the race. I just never realized the attack would succeed.
It was the evening of June 27, 2024. As soon as President Biden opened his mouth at the debate podium, I became worried. Then our phones started going off. It was clear that he was sick, and that this was the beginning of the end. I was in a backstage holding room at CNN’s studios in Atlanta, taking notes to prepare for questions after the president’s first face-off with Donald Trump, the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee.
The most senior members of Biden’s campaign team and White House team were also there, ready to size up how each candidate performed and figure out what to tweak for the next showdown. Some were parked in front of their laptops, looking at the buttons and dials on the screen to monitor in real time voters’ responses to the candidates’ answers.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper kicked off the debate. He later wrote a supposed tell-all about Biden, Original Sin, with Alex Thompson, accusing him of a cover-up of his mental decline and how his aides quashed concerns. I was technically a part of the president’s inner circle and saw Biden every day and saw no such decline. I never read Tapper’s book and don’t ever plan to because that does not track with what I saw in the White House. (I agree--if you've been reading my blog, you will remember many posts about various project activities, etc. The difference being that Biden had delegated and didn't try to get the praise for doing his job...)
At the debate, Tapper’s first question was, “President Biden, inflation has slowed but prices remain high.… What do you say to voters who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump?”
Biden spoke to the economic mess Trump left him. Over 10 million Americans were out of work and, early in the administration, another 4 million weren’t even looking. The gap between what our country brought in versus what it owed was headed toward more than $2 trillion, and the economy overall was struggling to get back on track as we continued to cope with the impact of Covid. Biden acknowledged that he had more to do to make things better, and highlighted the progress he’d made in addressing the financial needs of the American people, like capping prescription drug prices for seniors. His answer was solid, but his voice was faint and hoarse.
“Whoa,” I said to myself. “What’s wrong? He must be sick.” (Me, feeling the same way, I even wondered if somebody had drugged him as I watched how people were constantly roaming around the stage... and, especially, when the debate was over and he went to speak to his followers who were there... His manner and voice was clear and upbeat... I knew something had happened to cause his problems on stage.)
I was annoyed because this debate had come too early. Why were we giving Trump this stage? This was June and general election debates start in the fall. Plus, Trump had recently become a convicted felon and under normal circumstances that person wouldn’t have been able to come that close to the president.
Biden has always been a debater with mixed results, who says what he thinks. He was noted by the media in a debate with Paul Ryan for calling him out, uttering “that’s a bunch of malarkey” when Ryan asserted that American foreign policy fell apart under Obama. In 2019, he and Kamala went at it. He was left speechless when she accused him of opposing busing, recalling her childhood as someone who integrated her public school.
The last time he debated Trump during the 2020 election, Trump tried to derail the debate and constantly spoke over him, which was followed by Biden’s infamous remark, “Will you shut up, man?”
Yet, in 2012, his debate against Mitt Romney helped put excitement back into Obama’s campaign. The strategy for this early debate was to jumpstart Biden’s campaign and remind people that Trump was a convicted felon. There are double standards at the debate podium. Why is there a different expectation for Biden when Trump was vomiting at the mouth? (Trump always does unless he has a speech written by somebody else--during his first term, we all would know--judging when he was on teleprompter with somebody else's words, versus the clear times when he spoke extemporaneously and would fumble just like Biden did--that one time.)
We were barely eleven minutes into the ninety-minute debate when Biden began to stumble over numbers, mixing up trillionaires and billionaires, drifting off midsentence. “We finally beat Medicare,” he said in one fragmented response that frankly didn’t make any sense. My phone began to blow up. “What’s going on?” a reporter who buzzed my cell texted. “Does the president have Covid?” “Is the president sick?” asked another. “No, he doesn’t have Covid,” I texted back. “Yes, he has a cold.”
I quickly typed out my responses to the bevy of reporters seeking answers, but honestly, I was startled too. I’d flown in with Biden on Air Force One earlier that day. Maybe I was too nervous about the political match on the horizon that evening to notice whether or not he was sniffling. Maybe I was so focused on the thought that voters would get to see the contrast between an honorable politician and a sore loser running for office to stay out of jail that I didn’t pick up on how tired Biden might have been. I’m not sure how I missed the signs, but I had no clue Biden had a cold and was off his game until he began to speak at the debate.
I could tell he was pulling for answers, and I was worried, not so much about Biden’s health but about the alarm bells his performance would set off among those who were watching. Pretty much since the day he’d stepped into the White House, the press had taken every opportunity to imply Biden was too old or mentally unfit for the job, and I braced for the narrative they’d spin after this shaky display. It was clear from the calls I was already getting what the headlines would be. But even more disturbing were the reactions the president’s performance received from some of his fellow Democrats starting right after the debate. Pundits, strategists, and campaign surrogates were gathered a few miles away in the so-called spin room at Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion to dissect how things had gone. Among them was Claire McCaskill, a former Missouri senator who was now a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. She was a friend of the president’s, and she was hearing from party leaders voicing concerns about Biden’s mental decline due to his poor debate performance. I don’t think people had a deep belief in this, but this was the narrative around the loss, and Dems weren’t ready to take that chance.
All the reporters wanted to talk about was Biden’s age. They were waiting for something to happen because they were looking for something to happen, and the debate performance became their proof. This was no longer just a cold, there was now something more going on. The debate gave credibility to the narrative they’d been building for a year. “Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn’t do it,” McCaskill told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. “He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age, and he failed at that tonight.… Based on what I’m hearing from a lot of people, and some of them are people that are in high elective offices in this country, and you might guess where they serve, there is a lot of, more than handwringing tonight. I do think people feel like, that, we are confronting a crisis.”
There were some who swiftly came to the defense of the party’s leader, like Harris, who immediately said that the president had a slow start but ultimately made the points he needed to, and California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, who also had Biden’s back. But they were in the minority. Before long, I’d discover that one of the most powerful leaders of the Democratic Party was leading the charge against the president. The sniping had begun, but that night Biden quickly got back to the business of being both the head of state and a candidate. He went to a watch party, then stopped at a local Waffle House. The next day Air Force One was wheels up before dawn, flying to North Carolina, where Biden appeared at a rally attended by hundreds of supporters. All in all, we visited four states in two and a half days.
Then, the following week, the president hosted leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at a summit in Washington, DC. During a lengthy news conference following the meeting of the thirty-two European and North American nations, Biden held forth about intricate details of international policy and multilateral coalitions, showcasing knowledge that could only come from his decades of diplomatic experience. In the midst of those obligations, the president had to address a crisis. On July 13, at a campaign rally outside the town of Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump was the target of an attempted assassination. Struck in the ear, Trump wasn’t badly hurt, but one rally attendee, Corey Comperatore, was killed, and two other people in the crowd were seriously wounded.
(Like I said, Biden just went back to doing his job and very little required his personally presented news, except from the other party and those struggling to gain control... who constantly bad-mouth opposing party)
Biden decried political violence from the Oval Office two days later. Raging in the background of it all was the ongoing destruction in Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022, and the conflict between Israel and Gaza that erupted after the terrorist group Hamas abducted 251 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed on that day, and more than 50,000 Palestinians lost their lives in the ensuing months due to Israel’s military campaign. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died in that protracted war, with more than 200,000 Russian casualties according to some reports. There were real things happening in the world that Biden had to contend with. And he was being given credit and recognition by foreign allies and partners for how he handled Ukraine.
The debate was a distraction from what was really happening, not just in the U.S. but in the world. As the president carried out his duties, I often interacted with members of Congress who would accompany Biden on visits to their states or call on him to discuss various initiatives and policies. One day, I ran into a member of the California congressional delegation. There’d been a group text or call, the congressperson told me. Nancy Pelosi was on it. And she was saying that Biden needed to abandon his reelection bid. It was my first hint of what was going on behind the president’s back. Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, was one of the most powerful people to ever hold that position, wrangling her caucus like a general, able to shush a raucous chamber with a stern look or wag of a finger. Representing a district in San Francisco, California, she was elected to the House in 1987, fifteen years after Biden began his Senate career. He considered her a friend.
In that chat with fellow lawmakers, however, Pelosi made her feelings about Biden’s continued candidacy clear. I soon heard from another congressional leader about a similar conversation he’d been involved in. Pelosi was being very vocal, especially to members of her California caucus, that Biden needed to step aside. It was quite the about-face. In the months and days leading up to debate night, Pelosi sang Biden’s praises, saying in interviews that not only should he run for a second term but that he more than deserved to be reelected. And that was because of his record. “The opportunity that Joe Biden has given them with fifteen million new jobs created,” Pelosi said in January 2024 on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes. “This is a remarkable story and in a short period of time. Most of that was done in the first two years with a Democratic Congress with Joe Biden as our inspiration.” Two years earlier, almost every political pundit and pollster was predicting the Democratic Party would be trounced in a so-called red wave during the midterms, that interim period between presidential elections when every seat in the House of Representatives, and roughly a third of the spots in the Senate, are in contention. At the time, the Democrats had a slight majority in the House, and the Senate was split fifty-fifty, leaving the vice president as the tiebreaker on many occasions. Polls were showing that many Americans still saw the economy as not working for them and blamed the Biden administration for not doing enough. A Pew Research poll in October 2022 found that only 17 percent of those surveyed believed the economy was “excellent or good.” The costs of food, gas, and housing were the three top concerns of Americans. And only 38 percent of adults thought positively about Biden’s performance, while nearly 6 out of 10 said they didn’t approve. That was on par with how voters felt about Trump at a similar point in his presidency, but below the 46 percent who felt good about Obama’s presidency heading into his first term’s midterm election, and far below the approval rates for George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush two years into their first—and in the case of the senior Bush, only—terms. So the expectation was that voters would act as they had in recent elections, registering their dissatisfaction by pushing out representatives affiliated with the party whose leader occupied the White House.
Practically every time I took a turn at the podium after being named White House press secretary in May 2022, I was grilled about this coming red tsunami like it was a foregone conclusion. Reporters bounced around questions like, “Do you think the Dems are going to lose because of their messaging?” Or “Is the president not doing enough to give his party a strong platform to run on?” If they didn’t believe, based on polling, that the public was still behind Biden, those in Democratic leadership could have approached him then to persuade him not to run for reelection. After all, the consensus was the Democrats were going to be blown out and we’d just have to sift through the wreckage and hope for better results in 2024. But it didn’t happen. Come Election Day, it was actually the Republicans who were figuratively washed out, with Democrats gaining a seat to become a clear majority in the Senate and losing far fewer seats in the House than expected. In the end, House Republicans had 222 seats while our party had 213, and that unusually slim loss for the incumbent’s party and gain in the other chamber was largely due to what Biden had accomplished.
Party leadership seemed to understand that, since no one asked him not to run again in 2024. Instead they assumed, in public as well as behind the scenes, that as the incumbent he would of course again be the party’s nominee. There were other factors that led to the Dems’ midterm victories. In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which turned back the clock on women’s reproductive freedoms, overturning Roe v. Wade and essentially stripping away federal protection for a pregnant woman’s right to do what she chooses with her own body. In the wake of that ruling, abortion was poised to be extremely restricted or banned in twenty-six states, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. But just two months after the Supreme Court’s decision, Kansas, a Republican stronghold, beat back a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would have declared there was no right to an abortion. That was what was at stake when far-right judges inscribe their extreme positions into law, and it galvanized voters across the country. Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion to the abortion decision, written in June 2022, before the midterm elections, suggested that he was not going to stop at Dobbs. He was set to go after contraception and gay marriage too, despite Congress coming together in 2015 to pass the Marriage Equality Act in a bipartisan way. We “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote, naming cases whose revocation could jeopardize the ability to get birth control and marry whomever you love, regardless of gender.
The Republicans did take back the House. But there wasn’t a red wave. The popularity of Biden’s policies, along with the Supreme Court’s overreach and statewide efforts to reverse reproductive rights, led more voters than expected to push the button for Democrats. Biden’s approval ratings could have been stronger due to what he was able to accomplish, in particular because the laws he fought for—from the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was the first significant federal gun control legislation passed in nearly thirty years, to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that gave states billions of dollars to shore up bridges, roads, and utility systems—were monumental. Biden’s polices solved issues many Americans cared about, whether or not they gave Biden credit when they answered pollster’s phone calls. Democrats running for state and local offices could boast about the bridges being built, highways getting paved, and consumer protections getting a boost, but they didn’t mention the president’s name and stayed away from him because he wasn’t popular, coasting to a potential victory on Biden’s hidden coattails. Even Republicans who didn’t vote for the infrastructure legislation shamelessly took credit for it, like Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, who boasted to constituents about his state getting moneys to enhance broadband when he hadn’t supported the bill that made the funding possible. In 2021, no Republicans voted for the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1 trillion relief package passed by Congress to support small businesses, governments, and individuals during Covid, yet Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene benefited from it. Taylor Commercial Inc., a business owned by Greene and her husband, received a $182,300 loan that was forgiven, with interest, from the Paycheck Protection Program, which received extra funding from the American Rescue legislation—though she didn’t even vote for it.
(italics mine)
The Biden/Harris administration was the most diverse administration in modern history, both in its makeup and legislation. We made sure no one was left behind and included people who needed to be welcomed. We played a role in the historic election of Maura Healey, the first woman and openly queer person to become governor of Massachusetts. Wes Moore was elected during the midterms of 2022. Karen Bass became the first Black woman mayor of Los Angeles, while Alex Padilla became the first Latino elected by California voters to represent them in the U.S. Senate. Pelosi obviously knew all of that. Some in the party’s leadership, including Pelosi, feared Biden’s debate showing reinforced the growing narrative that he had become frail, and that could make it difficult to win in November. And I get some might have feared, whether rightly or wrongly, that Biden was not fulfilling the idea in some voters’ minds that a president must be a smooth, charismatic communicator. Again, Biden was never known for his oratory, and a lack of verbal dexterity hadn’t prevented him from winning the presidency or having a successful, decades-long career in the Senate. As for his bad debate performance, the president had owned it. In subsequent interviews, including one with ABC anchor and host George Stephanopoulos, he took full responsibility. He could have survived the debate setback, just like Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and other incumbent presidents overcame their own weak first debates when they ran for reelection. Only the Democrats—Biden’s party, my party—didn’t seem to want to give him the chance. The Democratic leadership was going after a man who’d dedicated his life to public service for more than fifty years. A man who served his first term in the Senate shortly after losing his wife and daughter in a fatal car accident, and answered the call to serve his country again, as a presidential candidate, a few years after losing another child—his oldest son, Beau—to cancer. Biden had put the country first time and time again, but somehow this was the guy our political party decided it needed to take down. One wobbly debate in Atlanta and it was ready to toss its leader away...
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I don't know about you, but I knew enough about what had happened during the Biden Administration, that I was able to determine of what I've read so far--prelude and 1st chapter--that the author was well versed in what was happening. She had to be. She was the "mouth" for the president, along with many others... White the president was fulfilling his job description... Yeah, there really is a job description for the president, but you already know that this administration, with support of part of the supreme court, is trying to change it to become another Putin. And if you don't understand what I mean, you're really lost in the chaos and need to start learning and listening to Truth... And documentation from the first term of this president proves that truth is not part of this president's language...
GABixlerReviews
This last video was created 1 year ago, but not enough of our citizens listened... Those who voted for Trump was now seeing that his promises to them, meant nothing, because as soon as he got in office, Project 2025 went into mandated control...created by an outside group, none of whom were elected...
You've already seen Musk take control of all of our information... You've already seen actions taken against all DEI employees and military staff... You've already seen his use of tariffs to cause friction with every single country in the world! I could go on...but if this doesn't help you see what is happening to take away our democracy, it just may be too late to stop it...
Please plan to vote!
One final note: I had planned on introducing another book today... It's about Gun Control... Watch for it Next...
My hobbies? The last thing in the world I wanted was more alone time to sew or stamp or paste. I’d had enough isolation. Enough one-sided conversations with dogs. Having another person in the house was so satisfying. I made the whole box of pasta for my super rich bolognaise sauce. I roasted a whole pork tenderloin, a full-sized roasting chicken. I’d stopped replenishing my Tupperware supply. With two people, there were never any leftovers. Jimbo had never kept a home. I had to teach him the basics like how to turn on the dishwasher and how to load laundry into the machine. For a time, I thought he’d share some of these tasks with me, but I was wrong. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. If I brought homemaking into his experience, he brought a life of belonging into mine. I was finally included into the mainstream of We. God, how I loved that pronoun. We watched Law and Order. We’re having lunch. We like spaghetti. In Walmart, we raced wheelchair shopping carts side by side, and I commiserated with the checkout lady about husbands who don’t remember to reload the toilet paper holder while Jimbo fumbled to find the proper coupons in the clippings folder. We shouted our orders into the drive-thru microphone, sets of two. Two cokes. Two pot pies. Two. Two. Two. Two is an even number. Two is a number that implies balance. Two is magic. We went to all our appointments together. We sat close together in doctor’s office waiting rooms. We helped diagnose each other, reviewing symptomology and incidences in complicated conversations. We got most of our information from the internet. We shared the same issues. Pain. Distress. Nonspecific discomforts. Jimbo introduced me to his pain management doctor, who was a friend of a cousin, and who wrote prescriptions for the lollipops that Jimbo loved. Morphine pops. Fentanyl pops. The pain doctor took care of all Jimbo’s refills. All his therapies. We bought discount packs of spinal epidurals that we scheduled together so we could hold hands during the procedures. At night, we rested together in bed, holding hands and watching television. I felt like I was finally able to breathe for the very first time; every pill was a revelation, every treatment a discovery. I called him Husband and he called me Wife. Wife! I loved the sound of that word! For the first time in my life, I was part of the club, an honored guest in the secret society called marriage. All the defenses I’d built up, the hobbies, the small friendships, the hours and hours of recorded television entertainment, were like sunfish boats set asea. Gone. Disappeared with all the mishaps and stories of my single life onboard. I’d always believed that marriage was a happy place. “I’m so glad I married your grandfather,” my grandmother spoke with the satisfaction of a person who’d made good choices. Apparently, she’d been dating another guy when she met my grandfather. He’d stolen her away, she recalled the fairy tale element of their union. My grandfather had died at the best part of her life, leaving her alone for the hardest part, old age, and yet she talked of their time together with simple lightness. “He used to surprise me every Halloween,” she recalled. “He’d put on a rubbery face mask and go around the side of the house to ring the front doorbell. When I’d answer, he’d yell, “Trick or Treat!” He also used to drop her off places and forget to pick her up. And he wandered off every time they had company to the house, preferring the companionship of his dog and his pipe to socializing with people. But mostly, she’d been happy. My parents did not share any of their marriage difficulties. I do remember one large container of flowers delivered to the house with a note in my father’s handwriting that read: Anger makes wrinkles. “You get used to each other,” my mother provided wisdom in small packages when we were girls. Maybe she confided in more detail to Celia who married at twenty-six and therefore had a need for more serious information. There was much I’d missed as a single person. I am sure I idealized my parents’ marriage, but what child doesn’t? By the time I got married, my parents had already passed their fifty-third anniversary. My sister never suffered an unhappy married day. But then, it is possible that the difficulties she encountered were not shared with me. She was, in some ways, like my mother. Reluctant to share too much about her own issues What she did share were the insignificant mishaps, the minor snafus of living as a pair. Conflicts over paint colors. Unleaded gas in the car or premium. Small insults. Habits and tics of silly annoyances. If I hadn’t met Jimbo, I’d have never known what it means to absorb another person, to join as one. The secrets afforded to the married were at once offered to me and I soared. What a marvel, to be a couple! To share the air with someone, to sit quietly and listen to each other’s breaths. I learned his sounds and he learned mine. His stomach percolated while he slept. His urine splashed in the toilet water like spring rain, delicate and intermittent. The patter of his pale bare feet on the laminate flooring was soft as ballet, for a pudgy man he walked with an angel’s grace. We kissed. We kissed and tickled and tumbled on top of one another. What had been a terrifying concept, that I would never be loved, became a known trust: he loved me. Jimbo loved me. And he showed his love in attention and hugs and in a constant consciousness of my well-being. “How do you feel?” he’d ask, and I’d answer, “I feel with my hands.” This was our private language, our secret banter. It meant: I am so happy to be with you. I loved making his pastrami sandwiches on wheat and driving him to his appointments. I loved watching his favorite television shows and learning how to read the horse racing sheets. I loved everything about him. That we could not have sex didn’t really bother me. I welcomed him into my bed as you’d welcome a discomfited child who scurries under the blankets for shelter during a lightning storm. Come to me. Lie with me. Let me stroke your face. Every night at eight, Jimbo calls his mother. They have a very strong connection. Indeed, they share an intense history. After the car accident that killed his father, Jimbo took to his bed, in his mother’s house. She cooked his meals, delivered his meds. She drove him to doctors’ appointments and picked up his prescriptions. At night, she drew a chair up close to the bed and they watched television together. It was no wonder that she got a little persnickety when Jimbo and I started seeing each other. I was hoping she’d be happy for us. That she will not come to our little wedding is a serious disappointment, but no matter how I press, he is unable to convince her. I am already planning the party. I want bowls of jellybeans on the tables, servers dressed in renaissance costumes, and an old-fashioned popcorn machine with a butter dispenser stationed at the entrance. Also, I’m going to pass out party horns so everyone can participate in the festivity. I already invited the tattoo artist who opened a business in his garage across the street and a few of my better neighbors. Plots will come of course. And Perla, my friend. Perla and I used to see a lot of each other. We’d visit after work, sometimes we cooked dinner on Perla’s little Hibachi grill. I was a bookkeeper then, balancing payroll, paperwork, and soul-crushing boredom in the rangy back room of a dental office where I hardly ever saw another person other than the office manager, who poked her head into my space occasionally to say Hello and Did you find the amended invoices I left for you. I could have done the job in my sleep. Perla lived in a tiny house on a large property owned by her parents who were rich, I think, back in Mexico. They’d tried for a few years to fix her up with a husband from their country, but no one would have her because of her scars. She’d had shingles as a teen which left her face puckered and pinched from her forehead to her neck. One side of her mouth hitched up as if lifted by a pulley. Perla had a menial job, a receptionist I think, in her uncle’s small appliance repair shop. She lived a quiet life, like mine. We had similar comfort zones, keeping mostly out of sight, satisfied with our homey crafts and our little survivals. But that was before. One night, at eight, Perla called and asked if I’d like to go shopping at the discount bazaar with her on a Saturday, an activity we used to do together. “I can’t,” I told her. “Jimbo doesn’t like when I go out without him.” “So bring him,” she said. I heard him mumbling to his mother. “My legs hurt,” I heard. “I can hardly walk.” “He has trouble walking.” “He can walk next to me,” she said. “That way, he won’t feel self-conscious.” I felt a momentary pang of missing the amusing banter of her friendship. Perla and I had a lot of good talks, we had some fun here and there. Mainly, we occupied each other’s time when no one else would. But I didn’t need her anymore. I’d shed her along with my single woman designation. I didn’t need friends. I had Jimbo. Perla was not letting go. “Just because you have a husband does not mean you need to ditch all your friends, stop having fun,” she challenged. “Remember that Halloween party?” She made me smile. I loved parties, I always had. “Remember?” she said. “God, we had the most fun!”
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As I began to read, it read like fiction. But this is not fiction. It is a Reality NOW happening across the world and especially in the United States...
I thought I knew all of the key words as I read--Co-dependency, Intervention, Addiction... All of these I had learned about through the media/books. But I knew as I read, I knew nothing about what happens to the individual who is, oftentimes accidentally, pulled into a life of drug addiction. After the beginning of the book, which is in first-person, I learned that she was a single woman--one who had never actually achieved any of her goals that she once dreamed of--that she even planned for and began early activities, such as gardening...
As we learn that she is in her mid-30s, we see a beginning of her looking backward, wondering how so many years had passed, and, that she was still alone. Soon after her family was surprised and dismayed when she announced she is marrying--a jobless, ill man who is a heroine addict. It was about that point that I realized that I didn't even remember her name... But, Jimbo, was to become the main character of this story... Sadly... As I read, after learning that initial shock of who she was marrying, all I could do is grow sadder and sadder as I read, still in my fictional fantasy that it would slowly change as in a romance story, and a true relationship would evolve between them...
I was wrong. This book is not fiction! But, still, I was shocked as the book...suddenly...ended...
Readers, I was never really knowledgeable about the drug problem facing our young people. My life had been molded by the church's activities and then began working at age 18 on a college campus where, again, I spent my days working and learning, and moving forward in a career... Many already know that I was overweight most of my life; I used to think that I could not condemn those who took a drug of any sort, since I also use food as an addiction. I was wrong. Very wrong. There is no comparison...
With food, I was only hurting my body, myself. I was still in control of my mind and made choices daily that were sound and based upon events of the world. Even as I would watch movies with scenes where there were people in a drugged state, just laying there, it never sunk in of what that individual had chosen, or not chosen, to become...
Folks, if any of this sounds like you. You need to consider this book a Must-Read! I will NEVER forget what I learned of the reality of "doing drugs" as was possible by reading this story of how a lonely person, in this case, a woman--but it could have been anybody--who is seduced into "feeling better" through a single pill...
A pill that becomes another pill and another... Especially if your husband, in pulling out his own drugs, chooses to pop one of his into your mouth...
It made me nauseous, sick to my stomach... I hurt for this woman and all that have lost control of the lives they were meant to live by addiction... I had one experience that gave me a "slight" taste. When I had a surgery to remove a brain tumor. I was given one of those pills beginning with oxy...I was to be in the hospital a week... As I look back, there were immediate signs that this medicine, which is now on my "allergic" list was harmful to me. By the end of that week, on the final day, I became so emotional, couldn't stop crying, that they had to give me a shot to calm down... I had a similar though not as extreme with birth control pills...fortunately a biochemistry professor who was a friend of mine, told me to get off the pills and drink water until they were out of my system...
I include these personal "minor" experiences for me to point out that each individual is different. What one person can tolerate, for another, it could be deadly. Obviously Jimbo had been much slower in building up his major addiction which had taken over his life. But what he did, I call it straight from my heart... It was murder, even if legally it could not be considered that.
Folks, I will be further discussing this book with the author. I'll be thinking about how to approach this traumatic experience, so watch for that soon. However, when I finished the book, I realized that I really had no further need. She has shared her heart, her loss, her fears as she watched what was happening to an individual who was to the point that she was not able to listen, and act, anymore. She had become addicted to laying in bed next to a man... where only kisses were the romantic life she had so wanted... Still her loneliness had created the need, the drive to find "someone," even if he was clearly wrong for her in so many ways...
Lisa shares the reality, the times when she and her sister would meet and talk and she would see some glimmer of hope that she was pulling away from the situation in which she found herself. Only to soon find that...it...was...too...late...
Parents, Teens, Everybody who has concerns for drugs being readily available, Please read this book. And never assume that their availability is not purposely being permitted... Seduction of our teens is continuously; Men who desire young girls, like Epstein, are legion--many choose to use date rape drugs for the rapes that are ongoing while there is a political party that thinks that those children that are born from rape should be kept by the young molested girls... even though under 10, as many of you will recall. Where are we headed? Certainly it is not love that drives children to take a pill when dared by somebody who has easy access, often from their homes...
I applaud Lisa for having the strength to write this story. It could not have been easy... I am grateful that she did. It opened my eyes and made me realize that even reading or watching Law and Order Special Victims doesn't give any real knowledge of exactly what is taking place. This book provides an ongoing daily diary, you might say, of the life of a woman who once lived and loved Jimbo. Yes, I could probably find her name in the book... But each reader needs to fill in her name for yourself... I, personally, am grateful for those in my life who could have gotten addicted by "testing..." drugs... Sure, I tasted beer, I puffed a cigarette once, but my mind was not receptive to either... I learned the potential danger only through prescribed drugs, which I could not handle! People wake up!
Do your duty to yourself and family. Read the reality of a lost life! Consider the life as it should be! NOW!
GABixlerReviews
Less opinionated post on Amazon for use to share if needed...
He was close. He could sense the answer buried somewhere in everything he’d learned and studied since he’d stood next to Talfour’s body and considered the eeriness of death amid the water and reeds and mist. What was it in the human heart that—over the centuries—continually linked the sacred and the violent? The same part that worshipped gods as superior beings but also believed that honoring them required the blood sacrifice of animals and people. At some point in the killer’s life, violence and sacrifice had become so intertwined in the killer’s mind that they could no longer be unwoven. Once again, Evan opened Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. Fate goes ever as it must. After a moment, he returned the book to the stack. If he was playing the role of the hunter, it was a good thing no one was waiting dinner on him. He stood. He needed to give his brain time to chew on things. Plus, it was way past time for him to feed Ginny. He called Addie on the landline and left a message expressing his concerns...then he casually mentioned that he was heading home. When she learned he’d violated her wishes, she’d be livid. But he’d find a way to make it up to her. Maybe with tickets to Hamilton... Next, he dialed the campus police and let them know he was ready to head out. They agreed to meet him near the main doors. He tucked the gun in his coat pocket, picked up his satchel, then flipped off the desk lamp and made his way to the door through the semidarkness, his path lit by the university lights shining through the windows. He lifted his coat from the hook and opened the door. In the hall—hands clenched, breathing hard—stood Tommy Snow...
He opened his journal to the drawing he’d done of Talfour’s body, the corpse set like a broken jewel amid the mud and reeds. Immediately in front of him, he squared a foolscap writing pad—he liked the additional room offered by the larger pages—and next to it, a fountain pen. He stretched, turned his neck from side to side to work out the kinks, and frowned down at the table. The most important thing to do whenever he was attempting to form a picture out of a scattering of puzzle pieces was to create some mental space between himself and the mystery. Distance was the key to finding the outside limits of the puzzle—the corners and sides, so to speak. Distance quieted the chatter of his brain and allowed the more intuitive thoughts to surface. He had several strategies for distracting his monkey mind when he was trying to dive deep on a problem. The wooden puzzles he was so fond of. Walking the grounds around the house. Taking Ginny out to fly. And baking sweet and savory pastries; he was particularly fond of some of the baking shows from his native Britain.
Tonight, he decided that music would be his technique of choice. He turned on the sound system and selected the chant for the dead sung during the requiem mass, “In Paradisum.” The choral voices soothed both him and Ginny and felt right for the work at hand. He nodded down at the documents laid out on the table. “And so we begin.” He pulled over a chair of a comfortable height and eased into it. He then picked up the pen and bent over the foolscap, touching ink to paper. A small dot appeared. His earlier unease vanished like a chill dropping away from his skin, leaving only a residual disquiet from the two deaths.
And even that disappeared as he began to work. Solving a puzzle of any form was a balm to heart and soul. Every enigma had an answer, every riddle a response. It remained only to find the correct key to set the universe to rights. He wrote out the runes left by the killer, getting the feel for their shapes. The lines and branches, the crosses and arcs. Although his medium was different—paper and pen versus wood and bone and a sharp-bladed tool—he could easily imagine the killer’s satisfaction as the characters took shape beneath his hand, unspooling the killer’s story. Then, as Rhinehart had done, he transliterated the runic alphabet into the Latin one. Here, he referred to the chart he’d made that morning. His transliteration was very close to Rhinehart’s. So despite the man’s refusal to consider other aspects of the crime scene, the man at least knew his runes. Finished with the first task, Evan sat back in his chair, sipped the Old-Fashioned, and watched as lamplight played along the cut crystal.
Now for the difficult part. Picking out the actual meaning from the string of characters. “I’ll be disappointed in you,” he said to the air, addressing the killer as if the man stood before him. “Very disappointed indeed if most of what you’ve given us is the kind of nonsense Rhinehart proposed.” He set down the glass and began, again, to write. He scratched things out, circled around, rewrote the words, rewrote entire lines. At one point, he murmured, “It is a numbering system,” as he scratched out and reordered some of the lines. The poet had not only used boustrophedon so that the lines had to be read in alternating directions but had also reordered his lines by moving every third line down, presumably to make the decipherment more difficult. Now and again, Evan consulted his phone to check a word or definition on the internet. Half an hour later, he laid down the pen and leaned back to survey his work. “It’s only a guess at the moment,” he said again to the lurking shadows, which lay deep enough along the walls to harbor a murderer. “I’ve no doubt made mistakes. But still, your poem speaks its own strange language.” Ginny twitched her head left, then right, as if searching the room for another human. “Your poem is also difficult,” Evan continued. “There are words and lines I don’t yet understand. You are a trickster. Exactly like any Old English poet worth his weight. But”—he picked up his glass and raised it in a mock salute—“what you gave us isn’t gibberish.”
He turned down the requiem mass until it was only a whisper in the background and tapped a button on his small audio recorder. He read the lines aloud. First the Desser runes and then Talfour’s. 2 Thus from my bothy I came homeland’s ward for cattle of riding 3 to sacrifice the innocent at night she takes back her sons and daughters 4 who rived and tholed and peeled her flesh like ripe fruit 9 blessing giver my blood-feud stillbirths your further crimes 10 Listen up! Mighty men I undo and unto earth I send 11 Their water weighted corses. I am a dam-ned scop 12 A death driven mere plague, the brume that binds up evil. 13 A weary warrior wailing with wyrded wergild, 14 A slayer of the bone halls breaking Fjorgyn. 15 You know why! Over the sun swimmer home I came 16 For mine! Mine mine gone. Bowel buried, busted by big bosses 17 That war crime, sword shaker, heart of my bawn entombed. 18 Making me bodulfr war wolf and lendreg and ageclaa, all, bearing the. 19 What of this bone cage? This skin sinner is ox of riding. 20 By Skollfud’s light I laid him low. Wight is he and soon wight. 21 In warding I reward. Into his mouth of hearing I poured my mead. 22 Tell me! By Mani’s lait I laid it out. Prick me this. But 23 His honey maker held still, so I held tight, strong as nnn men. 24 He felt the weight of his wight, knew wyrd is wicked. 25 With his mirror I did mirror mere to mere 26 His thole was thus that he thanked the hel guard 27 When wailing the word weaver arrived a bletsian. The word bletsian died away, swallowed by the chant for the dead. The drapes stirred as the heater kicked on. Outside, the trees shook their needled robes. “Now, to some of the more difficult phrases,”
Evan said, still recording so that the police would have access to his thought process if needed. “Skollfud’s light, for example. By Skollfud’s light I laid him low. Not, as Rhinehart suggested, by skull food lait. Skoll is the name of the wolf in Viking poetry who will one day devour the sun goddess. So perhaps the killer named the sun Skoll’s food. And since we know Talfour was placed by the river just before dawn, let’s assume the killer meant morning’s light, not daylight or evening.” He could hear Addie pushing back, questioning him. Why didn’t he just write morning, then, if that’s what he meant? she’d ask. Because, he’d answer. Old English poets loved riddles. They performed tricks with their words. Note how cleverly the killer took something generally considered positive—a sunrise—and turned it into a violent metaphor of a wolf devouring a goddess.
A poet? Addie would ask. Indeed. Make no mistake . . . our killer is a poet. Perhaps an indifferent one. But a poet nonetheless. He circled back to line eighteen, with its anagrams. Almost immediately, he cried, “Yes!” Ginny fluttered awake. Annoyed at his outburst, she shook her wings. Now on his feet, Evan made his way to the bookcase still carrying the recorder. “But the Old English style of this poem confirms my suspicions. Lendreg is most definitely an anagram for the monster Grendel.” He gazed at the shelf that held his books of medieval poetry. “For any listeners unfamiliar with Beowulf, it’s the tale of a Viking hero who slays a terrible monster named Grendel. Later, Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother, the second monster of the saga. And at the very end of the story, he slaughters a dragon and is himself mortally wounded. Heroic and tragic, all at once.” Ginny lifted a foot, studied the razor-sharp talons like a woman admiring her pedicure. “Important for our purposes, Grendel is an aglaeca, a word that also appears in the killer’s poem. It means monster. But ironically, the word is related to the later Middle English word egleche, which means brave and warlike. A contradiction that is, perhaps, indicative of our killer’s mindset.” Evan stopped recording and raised his gaze to the windows, vaguely aware of the mist twining through the hedges in the knot garden and banking against the dormant lavender. Had he heard something? But it was only the chant for the dead, looping through a second time. Once again, he tapped the “Record” button. “Moreover, we have the word bodulfr. This word isn’t an anagram. Bodulfr is the Icelandic word for war wolf. In the interest of saving time, I’ll skip over the etymological variants that lead us from boldulfr to Beowulf. You’ll have to trust me on that linguistic point. The important thing we need to know is that the killer is telling us he is both monster and monster slayer.” He paused. “What are we to make of that?”
Ginny failed to look impressed by Evan’s philological prowess. And Evan, moving from the windows to the bookcases, failed to find his copies of Beowulf. He owned translations from Heaney, Tolkien, and Liuzza. All of them were gone. “God’s bones,” Evan said. “I must have loaned them out.” Although he had no recollection of doing so. Not that it was uncommon for him to forget. As much as he loved his books, he was often careless with them, relying on those who borrowed a title to be trustworthy about returning it. As he scanned the nearby shelves, an old medieval curse rang in his head.
Steal not this Book my honest friend For fear the gallows be your end For when you die the Lord will say Where is the book you stole away.
~~~
This was one of the most fascinating, multi-genre books I've ever read. You will read about ancient mythology during the age of Vikings, Odin et.al. It is brilliantly done as the history is explored from the past to merge with the present... I've been talking about seeing connections more and more and this book brought several to my mind... I think it is helpful to work to understand what is happening in our nation at this time...
There were men from Q-Anon dressed in costume, men embracing the Nazis, while others came in groups of men who had formed groups to form militias, for whatever reasons... The one thing we do know that they had joined a cult led by one man who invited their attendance: "It will be wild..."
In this book, in Chicago where the book is set, there now were those who had looked much further back into history, to the age of Vikings... Those who banned together to bring back the glory of white supremacy and, again, violence as their main objective.
But another connection came to mind as well. Nickless in her extensive reading and research for this fantastic novel, learned that there were/are no actual historical records that were written during that time... It was only later that individuals began to do research of whatever they were able to pull together and thus a sort of cult activity was begun, making heroes out of those individuals who were called Vikings...
I've been reading a nonfiction book written by Mary Magdalene. Her book had been either lost or hidden which, undoubtedly, would have forced questions of the Bible itself... This book enforced my present ruminations about the Old Testament in particular and in relation to the "full story" in the present New Testament. This is not meant to be critical. It is merely an observation and a gaining of insight such as through The First Light that people routinely hone in on what you might call the Strong Men of history and begin to emulate or at least attempt to follow somebody that they admire--forming a cult of sorts.
There was even a place for those who followed the Viking ways... The Ragnarök ax-throwing establishment owned and managed, by a man named Sten Elger.
Yes, instead of a bowling alley, Sten had created a shorter alley and had axes to throw... Lots of fun and drinking... But readers will also meet a number of those who will be major or minor characters that have caught the attention of the police...
Because a murder had occurred... And the detective who caught the case, once she saw the body, immediately called her best friend, who is the main character of this trilogy (I've already purchased the other two books--that's how much this book impressed me).
Excerpt from The Narratives of Serial Killers Semiotician: Evan Wilding, PhD, SSA, IASS Proceedings of the International Conference on Semiotics Every murderer creates his own story. This story may be simple or elaborate, coherent or deeply fragmented. Serial murderers often leave signs and symbols at the crime scene—messages for the police to decipher. Notes, maps, images. The posing of the body, a unique modus operandi. The killer is the riddler extraordinaire, and his narrative—the story he wishes to tell—is the enigma he presents to the detective. Someone—perhaps Nietzsche—once said that those seen dancing were thought insane by those who could not hear the music. Our job is to find the killer’s music.
"Ragnarök. In reference to the Viking apocalypse, I presume."
Evan Wilding, PhD, SSA, IASS, was added to the team of investigators working on the first murder, and by the time, it was being formed, a second murder had occurred. Both extremely ritualistic... One of the key points was that both had been killed 3 different ways. And, bones with runes written on them were found among the other extremely defined scene where the bodies were found. He was the main individual doing the historical research based upon what had been found at the scenes which went well beyond the rune symbols...
Addie had a new boss who was clearly adverse to working with a female detective, especially in the lead role, so he promptly ignored the fact that she had already hired an expert and brought in another who was an expert on runes. I appreciated the author noting that she had simplified for her book the extremely exact methodology which was needed to transcribe runes to
the English language. It was covered several times, and I still could not imagine actually being able to do what the experts were doing. Still the addition of another expert automatically increased the tension for the team members since the second man added was not aware of the first; and, when he began to be challenged by Evan, it got even more tense.
It was the Runologist who brought to mind another connection to today's world when he attempted to make the case that it was more than likely that the meaning of the runes was connected to Germany and Hitler's use during his leadership. It was clear that Evan had the broader background and, in fact, having his involvement actually led to what was to occur. Even if Evan was the individual who was narrowing down just who the actual killer was, the climax proved him and the readers to be wrong--or at least I was! LOL
A final note about the characters. Both Evan and Addie were exceptionally well-developed, although I decided not to include personal descriptions and interactions between these two friends. I look forward to seeing them again--they should prove to keep the action moving in the next two books... More than likely, characters will changed based upon the complexity of the crimes. The back history on Vikings, correlated with those who have chosen to band together as wannabes, proved to result in one of the most complex, intense, and informative novels I can remember reading... Kudos to the author!
Most of you may expect that I will include discussions about comparisons between today's chaos in the nation. Authors should feel free to delete these portions if they want to use my review in other places. Or copy the one on Amazon...
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