Month: January 2023

A black person can in fact hate black people. Scholars have long provided the term, “internalized racism” to describe animosity toward people from one’s own group identity. Over the years, I’ve encountered anti-blackness in black students and adults. I had one black student confess that her grandmother advised her to avoid other black students on campus because they were “trouble”. This kind of racism against one’s own identity comes from being subjected to years of negative messaging coupled with a few incidents that reinforce those negative messages. So, the fact that five black officers beat an innocent young black male to death is not evidence that racism wasn’t a factor in this particular case. It likely was front and center along with their character flaws. However, racism is at the root of the problem with policing today.

At the historical root of modern policing is the brutality of slavery, overseeing slaves, and slave catching. Post-slavery, policing was used to feed the prison system, which was legalized slavery, providing cheap labor to industry. Black men have always been the most targeted group to feed the system. The era of Jim Crow added particularly egregious laws that targeted the behavior of black people and severely limited their civil liberties, making black life difficult and black incarceration easier. These oppressive laws were eventually replaced by “non-discriminatory” laws that were overly enforced in black communities as a way to justify the arrest, ticketing, and conviction of black citizens for offenses. Too often, these same offensives are ignored in white communities by police and judges. The many examples of unequal justice are backed by statistics that show over-policing, racial profiling, excessive ticketing, and harsher sentencing for black people. For many years media reporting highlighted the crimes of blacks while simultaneously ignoring the fact of over-policing and harsher sentences. These flawed reports fueled calls for tough on crime legislation that further targeted black communities and gave a tacit pass to police brutality. I’ve heard white people say that blacks get arrested so often because they are the ones who commit most of the crime. But that isn’t necessarily the whole truth.

Living in a white community, I’ve seen and experienced the disparity firsthand. When a white kid commits a crime, he is let off with a warning. His actions are written off as, “boys will be boys”. When I was working at the University, police wouldn’t bother to even come to campus to arrest a white kid for possession and even sale of marijuana. Twice, violence against my own son was written off that way. And on one occasion, I later found out that the police officer didn’t even file a report, breaking police policy. However, when a black child commits a crime, he is treated as a bonified criminal for the exact same indiscretion. National news reports show black children as young as five years old being led away by police in handcuffs, further pushing the narrative that even black children are dangerous. And in communities across the country, young black men are routinely stopped, and their cars searched for drugs in hopes of making an immediate arrest. Policing in this country has always been used as a weapon against black people. Something is terribly wrong when the police are called and then show up when a black person is simply minding their own business in a space where their presence is seen as a threat by a white person.

Calls for police reform have little chance of passing this current Congress because the object of the unfettered brutality is primarily young black males. Media and public sentiment toward black people have to change drastically for lawmakers to finally enact necessary police reform. I’m hopeful that change will come because our broken criminal justice system is finally being exposed. I’m thankful for the body cameras and the cell phone videos of private citizens. I’m thankful for the CCTV cameras that captured the beating of Tyre Nicols and exposed the bogus reason for the stop. They couldn’t find any reckless driving. I’m thankful for the brave people coming forward to tell their hidden stories. I’m thankful for the “peaceful” protesters who take to the streets to demand justice.

In recent years, each senseless death, has helped to expose the racism and underlying injustice built into our criminal justice system. It is right that the five black officers were immediately fired and charged with second degree murder in this case. But it would be foolish of me to ignore the fact that they, too, were black males and that justice was much swifter in their case than in all the cases involving white officers caught in the act of police brutality.

I’m not saying we don’t need police. We do and I appreciate individuals willing to put their life on the line every day to protect and serve the public. I just want this system to recognize that people with black skin also deserve to be protected and served. And that starts with hiring police officers with the right mindset. Too many of them have overly inflated or fragile egos and become bullies. Some are violent at their core and chose policing to feed that craving. I think initial and continuous psychological testing is needed to assess suitability for duty. I think mental health services must be provided and mental health awareness training should be required. It is estimated that about a third of incarcerated individuals have mental health issues. We need to end the practice of accidentally hiring police who were fired or pushed out of other departments due to misconduct.

There is work to be done and the only way to get Congress to pass the George Floyd Police Reform Act is to push them to do so. If it means writing letters, then we must write. If it means, protesting, then we must protest. If it means meeting with Congressmen, then we must meet. Until we are willing to demand better, black people will continue to be the target of over-policing and police brutality.

When it comes to getting anything done in Washington, politicians have admitted that they are forced into action by the people. Without our loud voices pushing them, they won’t do much. These days, Republicans are hearing a lot from conspiracy theorists, white Christian nationalists, and white supremacists while the rest of us look on in absolute horror and wonder why they are making such horrific choices. They are being driven by a very loud voting minority. It’s time for the rest of America to become even louder to push them in another direction. While protesting and voting are important, we have another tool in our toolbox that too few people realize or fail to utilize.

The First Amendment grants us the right to petition our government. What this means is that we have the right to use our individual and collective voice to express our grievances or desires directly to our elected government officials without threat of reprisal. This is a right that I have used frequently by either taking the time to read and sign petitions created by others or by sitting down and either emailing or writing a letter. Some people prefer to pick up a phone to call their representatives. I’ve done that, too, although I prefer to email or send letters. A few people, make an appointment for a face-to-face meeting. This week, I sent two such letters. I sent one to the new Speaker of the House, Republican Kevin McCarthy along with a copy of it to the new House Minority Leader, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries. I sent a second letter to the new Chair of the Oversight Committee, James Comer of Kentucky, after being disturbed by his interview on the PBS News Hour.

Below is a copy of the letter I sent to the new Speaker. My hope is that readers will become inspired to do the same. The more emails, letters, and phone calls, the better. His Washington DC address is 2468 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515.

Dear Speaker McCarthy,

As a tax-paying, law-abiding, voting citizen of this country, I am writing to express my disappointment in the Republican agenda and the looming (and unnecessary) fight over the deficit.  The Republicans look like revenge-seeking hypocrites who will do absolutely nothing to address the actual problems that face the nation.

You whine about deficits now that Biden is in the White House but gave Trump an easy pass.  In fact, you cut revenue (taxes) for the wealthy and corporations.  Of course, we have a deficit!  When an American family can’t pay their bills, they not only cut spending, but they find another revenue source like working overtime or getting a part-time job.  You want to cut spending on essential things that will hurt average Americans, especially the poor, when you really should be collecting more taxes from the wealthy and from those (like Donald Trump) who cheat on their taxes.  Warren Buffet and others publicly admitted that he didn’t need those tax cuts.  We have people with more wealth than they can possibly spend and yet their wealth is only growing while others work long hours and can’t afford necessities. Perhaps you should start a Go Fund Me page for the wealthy to “donate” to the government since you refuse to tax them.

I find your rhetoric and your agenda to be bogus on just about every front.  First, you refuse to hold Trump accountable for breaking laws, lying, and causing an insurrection.  Second, you have given committee appointments to Santos who became a congressman through lies and deceit and is very likely a criminal. At the same time, you gave committee assignments to conspiracy theorists who lack common sense and common decency.   Your party punishes upstanding representatives who tried to hold Trump and the January 6^th insurrectionists accountable for their attack on our democracy.  And anyone with eyes understands that Dr. Fauci was a public servant who worked to save lives during a pandemic.  And for God’s sake, Hunter Biden is not the president and doesn’t hold any kind of public office, so why are you wasting my taxpayer dollars investigating a private citizen?  Instead, you should stop ignoring the business and financial connections Trump, his daughter and son in law had with foreign countries during their tenure in the White House.  This is hypocrisy at its worse.

None of your attacks on women’s health, LGBTQ civil rights, the poorest among us, health care, and social security are going unnoticed by average Americans who care about the lives of others.  You can’t dress up your harmful agenda as fiscal responsibility when you continuously cut taxes on people who don’t need it and ignore doctors and scientists in favor of flimsy conspiracy theories, ignorance, and a rejection of historical facts.   

And as an aside, I tried to call the IRS to get a tax question answered and had to wait for hours to get an answer because they are understaffed.  On another occasion, I had to give up altogether and never received a call back.  We desperately need more agents to answer questions and to collect taxes from cheaters like Trump.  So, I fully reject your suggestion to defund the IRS.  And a national sales tax is an unfair tax on the poorest among us.  If anything, you should be raising the income tax rates and social security tax on the wealthiest Americans or ask them to donate to the U.S. Treasury.

I’m disgusted by your party’s unwillingness to spend money on the things this country needs like infrastructure, healthcare, a safety net for the poor, clean-air and water, fighting threats like climate change, and an immigration system that works. 

We have real problems in this country, and I am livid that your party plans to spend its time on revengeful investigations and fights over spending cuts instead of addressing the real problems I mentioned. 

I am expecting you to raise more revenue to cover necessary spending.  I am expecting you to hold Trump and members in your party accountable for their attacks on our democracy. I am expecting you to listen to healthcare providers, scientists, and other experts to try to solve real problems.   I am expecting you to pass comprehensive immigration laws that deal with the issues at our border and to process people who are here in a timelier fashion.  I am expecting you to protect the reproductive rights of women.  I am expecting you to pass legislation that curbs the rampant gun violence, gun suicides, and gun accidents that are happening every day. I am expecting you to deal with domestic terrorist who threaten educators, public health care workers, election officials, judges, and legislators.   I am expecting you to address the drug crisis tearing through communities.  You cannot do this by defunding the FBI and investigating the justice department.    

All of this comes under what our government was established to do:  provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.  We need revenue to accomplish these things and until now, we have collected taxes.  So, stop cutting taxes unless you plan to run the government on donations from the wealthy.

Sincerely,

Dr. Juanita Hall

Cc: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries

My hope in sharing this is that my readers will seriously consider taking the time to make their opinions known to our lawmakers. They only act when we push them. And for those who think these letters fall on death ears, please know that that is not the case. I’ve had lawmakers respond directly to specific comments in my letters. One aide told me that each letter is important because they understand that it represents a lot of people who don’t take the time to write but who feel the same way.

While making small talk with my dentist this week as she prepared to clean my teeth and examine the progress from my Invisalign braces, she mentioned that she hadn’t watched any news for two years to preserve her mental health. Coincidentally, my husband confessed on one of our walks this week that he can no longer watch the news in the morning because it ruins his entire day. I, too, have limited my consumption of news for the same reason as the two of them. Watching the news, particularly the political news is like watching a slow-moving train wreck happening before my eyes and feeling helpless to stop it.

However, I am not entirely helpless. People say that to address a problem one must first acknowledge that a problem actually exists. As a human, it’s tempting to ignore, avoid, or to pretend like a problem doesn’t exist, especially when you feel like you don’t have the means to address it. Today, our nation faces a collective problem presented by the MAGA Republican agenda. They are white “Christian” nationalists, not very different from the Nazi Party and they want to take over the nation.

In my lifetime, I have never encountered a group of people so determined to lean into conspiracy theories, debunk ideologies, and wishful thinking as opposed to actual science, history, and social and psychological research. Their willingness to promote dangerous misinformation, lies, and to distort facts is difficult to swallow. The level of blatant racism, xenophobia, and hypocrisy is disheartening and uncomfortable to watch. The fact that MAGA Republicans are willing to allow a fraud like George Santos to continue to be seated in the House of Representatives shows just how depraved and unhinged this party has become. Truth and integrity are not a priority; power is. It’s clear to anyone watching a Congressional hearing that they are opposed to allowing science, academic research, and medical professions guide decision making regarding climate change, abortion, public health, and transgender issues. The evidence shows that they want to hide or manipulate history so they can characterize any attempts to rectify the damage done to minorities as attempts to discriminate against whites. They are against immigration from non-white countries. Like moderate Republicans, they too want to end Social Security and Medicare as well as income taxes. So then, what are they for?

First and foremost, they are for re-establishing white male “Christian” dominance in the United States and the world. They embrace a false narrative that this is a “Christian” nation. They embrace the strong man approach over the constitution that now grants freedoms to minorities and women. To reestablish white Christian male dominance, they are willing to hand over the reins of government to a leader who is willing to kill, imprison, or silence anyone who threatens what they believe is their God-given right to rule and dominate. In their distorted view of things, the founders created freedoms solely for them. They alone truly have the right to vote, so voter suppression of minorities is good until they can again eliminate that right altogether. This is why they think there are stolen elections. If you don’t believe people of color legitimately have the right to vote, then you view their votes as fraudulent. They believe that freedom of speech applies only to them, even if their words cause chaos or puts others in harm’s way. They believe the right to their religious practice justifies denying the civil liberties of other citizens. They believe they have the right to protest, but others are unpatriotic if they do so and should be punished. They believe they have the right to bear arms, but view others as a threat to be killed on the spot by police if they bear arms.

Behind this anti-democratic stance is the underlying reasoning that white people discovered and fairly conquered the indigenous people to establish this country as a white protestant nation. In their minds, only white people are true Americans. The surviving indigenous people belong on reservations. All others are merely guests and inferior humans who were brought in (in chains) or allowed to enter to help build the infrastructure, industry, and agricultural foundations that made this country to function and prosper for them to enjoy.

However, those few white protestants realized that they were quickly outnumbered by indigenous, blacks, and immigrants from around the globe who were pouring their blood, sweat and tears into this nation without rights. Their answer was to expand what it meant to be white and therefore an “American” with full access to education, voting, and positions of authority. Immigrant groups literally petitioned the Supreme Court to be classified as “White”. Some were granted whiteness while others such as Southeast Asians and Japanese were denied. My Armenian son-in-law was shocked to learn that he is white because the Supreme Court said so. Some Mexicans cling to their whiteness because of a similar Supreme Court ruling. The expansion of whiteness was a way to maintain dominance over people of color and to restrict competition for land, education, employment, and power. Legalized discrimination made the escape from poverty nearly impossible for all but the extremely talented or lucky.

As second-class citizens who fought in every war and helped build the country, it was inevitable that people would form an alliance to demand full citizenship rights. Jews, who are white, are most hated for joining with Blacks, feminists, and other people of color in fighting for Civil Rights. This ongoing the alliance of feminist women, ethnic, religious, and LGBTQ minorities makes up the democratic party today. They are continuing to fight for access to opportunities and the expansion of higher education and a safety net. While Conservatives are individualists, Democrats see us as being in this together and affecting each other’s lives.

It’s undeniable that strides have been made to educate and give more access to land, capital, education, employment and power to people who were previously excluded from all these opportunities. What we’ve achieved with the limited access we earned is remarkable, but it is also scary to some white conservatives, particularly those like Trump.

The election of Barack Obama awakened fears within the hearts of some white people that “their nation” is being overrun by outsiders and overly ambitious people of color. MAGA Republicans are fearful of losing what power they think they have and so they have unleashed an all-out war on feminists, ethnic minorities, Jews, LGBTQ folks, and immigrants. “Make America Great Again” really meant, “Make America ‘White’ Again” where white males hold all the wealth and power.

The MAGA Republican agenda is simple: Restore power and privilege to white Christian Americans. First, they will close the borders to non-whites. They will force pregnancy upon women to stifle their ambitions and curtail their progress. Then they will cripple poor communities by eliminating all social safety nets while re-establishing discrimination (disguised as freedom) so that poor people and LGBTQ people will no longer have the energy nor desire to seek political power. They will replace income tax with a national sales tax that unfairly taxes the poorest among us. If they can create a permanent underclass of cheap labor who must work until the day they die (and they will die sooner with more poverty-driven crime and without decent food and healthcare), then they will have achieved their goal.

The time is right now to acknowledge that we have a problem in this country that will not be ignored, avoided, nor wished away. It matters that we stay informed and that we use our individual and collective voice to advocate for what is true and just. We must defend those among us who are under attack. It matters more than ever that we vote for officials who are inclusive and who value equal justice under the law and who tap into the current wisdom of science, history, and medicine. This is our collective fight to win against a very vocal and relentless MAGA Republican Party. So, watching or reading a little bit of news every day is a task that must not be entirely avoided even though it makes me uncomfortable.

Anyone watching the news this past week saw drama unfold as the two faces of the Republican Party did battle over who would become the next Speaker of the House. The situation sparked a conversation with my husband over what the Republican Party stans for. In my mind, there are two agendas and neither of them suit my taste. This week, I’ll share my take on the moderate Republicans

What I’ve observed about the moderate or traditional Republican Party is that they are primarily rugged individualists who believe that everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps without government intervention and low taxes. They point to the “American Dream” as though every American has the capacity, pathway, and opportunity to achieve it if they go to school, get a job, get married before having babies, and work hard enough. With that mindset, they view the poor as failures.

The reality is that Republicans choose to ignore the reality that some people cannot follow their prescribed path for a variety of economic, physical, social, and emotional reasons. Few children born in poverty have the extraordinary talent, courage, and drive to overcome the trauma and lack of resources associated with growing up in poverty. In my opinion, Republicans are far too quick to demonize the poor as lazy “welfare queens” looking for a handout instead of looking for a job. To them, poverty is a character flaw to be punished, not mitigated. As rugged individualists, I watch as they continuously vote to withhold the funding needed to address both the immediate and underlying problems of the poor. Instead, they are willing to allow children to go hungry, be under-educated, and to become desperate enough to view crime as an opportunity if they aren’t especially talented in some way. Their answer to the crime their individualism inspires is to invest in greater numbers of police and prisons. They simply lock up the criminals and the mentally ill, the majority of whom are black and brown people as a direct result of this country’s history of systematic discrimination that perpetuated poverty.

Moderate Republicans have a staunch belief in limited government, free enterprise, a strong military, and fickle immigration. They assert that people should be trusted to make decisions for themselves as individuals regarding gun ownership and mask wearing, despite the obvious risks to public health. Like poverty, they believe that people are fully responsible for their own outcomes, whether positive or negative. Their repeated answer to innocent lives taken by Covid-19 and victims of mass shootings is the offering of “thoughts and prayers”. They expect individuals to take precautions like arming themselves as though the good guy with a gun can always stop a bad guy with a gun. They seem to prefer a self-imposed isolation for Covid-19, not mask-wearing or vaccine regulations. I’m disheartened, but not surprised by their policy of going out in public at your own risk. This explains their opposition to universal healthcare. They believe an individual’s health and related expenses are personal and should be handled on a personal level.

This rugged individualism extends beyond public health. They allow for blatant discrimination against women, LGBTQ people, and people of color, while also allowing for the exploitation of illegal immigrants by employers as “free market strategies”. Employers in labor intensive industries like agriculture, meat packing, and construction desire cheap labor and so Republicans refuse attempts to increase legal guest-worker programs and to increase governmental capacity to process more immigrants. Their strategy has been to score political talking points by demonizing migrants as drug dealers, murderers and rapists while forcing desperate migrants into an illegal status that provides industry with cheap slave labor.

I don’t find the moderate Republicans to be overtly racists. In fact, they hate even the idea of it. Instead, they approve of a false “meritocracy” that gives obvious advantages to the children of wealthy people in education, business, and housing while crippling the historically less fortunate, who just happen to be primarily black and brown people. They genuinely claim to be “color blind” and they truly believe that they are adhering to Martin Luther King, Jr. speech about character being more important than color. This is why they so easily demonize the poor as deficient in character and so happily praise the few people of color who have risen out of poverty to join their ranks. So, of course, they cry, “reverse discrimination” should any special access to opportunities be given to those who have been historically disadvantaged through discrimination. This is why they are quick to highlight the extraordinary accomplishments of the few minorities who are successful as though they are living proof of the righteousness of rugged individualism.

Moderate Republicans chose to ignore history, science, and sociology in favor of advancing “opportunities” for personal and corporate economic gain. If a vaccine, clean energy, or technological advances makes money and creates jobs, then they are all it. However, I think they approach history and science and social change as threats to the status quo and so they inject the fear of losing what they have into every argument. This is how they earned the title, “conservatives”. For example, they continue to adhere to a disproven theory of trickle-down economics in order to continue to support policies that favor the wealthy “job creators” who are in reality labor exploiters, not much different from slave owners. Their policies have only increased wealth inequality because nothing really trickles down.

In the seventies, Republicans needed more Americans to join their ranks and so they added issues to their agenda that appealed to white evangelical Christians. They put forward the protection of the unborn and the notion that the U.S. was a “Christian” nation in danger of being taken over by secularism. They boosted their numbers among white evangelical Christians.

But it was the election of the first black president that ignited the racism and white supremacy that has become the Trump “MAGA” faction of the Republican Party. Next week, I’ll talk about what they stan for and why they must be defeated.

Like many people, I welcome the new year as an opportunity to reflect on the past year and to reset my priorities for the new year. I take time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve to consider who I want to be, how I want to live, and what I hope to accomplish in the coming year. Often times I make resolutions to lose weight, change bad habits, learn a new skill, or do more of something good. I always use the time to review, reorganize, and revise my finances (and this year was no different). I created my financial strategy for the year including a budget. This year’s reflections and revisions are heavily influenced by the fact that I’m about to become a grandmother to two additional grandsons in February and March and the relief that my husband’s 2 1/2 years of treatment for lung cancer have been officially concluded with success. He will start 2023 without any traces of cancer in his body!

I’ve reviewed the charities and political organizations to which I contribute on a monthly automatic basis and I’m not making any changes. My giving reflects my desire to help in areas that touch my heart the most. I have limited resources, so I can’t give to every worthy cause, although I would really like to. I’m thankful that my husband has his own set of charities that he donates to at the end of each year, and they are different from mine. He prefers to write big checks, while I like the monthly approach. So, I’ve made the tough decision to continue to give to St. Jude, Doctors Without Borders, Women for Women International, FINCA, UNICEF USA, the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Michigan, and World Food Programs. On the political organization side, I’ll continue to give to MoveOn and Emily’s List. Throughout the year, I’ll donate to individual campaigns during election season, give one-time donations for disaster relief efforts, and donate to educational institutions and scholarship funds during fundraising campaigns.

On the educational and social justice front (my vocational purpose), I’ll continue with the Fully Present Better Human Project using my social media accounts, website, and promotional products. It’s not a money-making venture, but a passion project with the hope of encouraging better human behavior. Starting in January, my daily posts will be posters promoting the nine better human behaviors to build a safer and more equitable society. I’ll also put forth my social justice poems and promote the products I’ve created to help others spread the message with me.

I drastically changed our eating in 2022 to a plant-based diet (except Fridays) and I practice intermittent fasting where I eat during an 8-hour window and fast for 16 hours. These changes along with exercise have improved my health and even improved my kidney function, which I didn’t think was possible. I firmly believe this new diet also helped with Michael’s recovery. I’ve lost ten pounds so far and all my lab numbers are within the normal range. So, I’ll just continue eating this in 2023 alongside my gardening and other activities that involve working with my hands.

I spent most of the last two years knitting for my grandsons. I made hats, booties, blankets, sweaters, and mittens. That’s all done. I’ve put the yarn and the knitting needles away. However, during a time of stress in early December, I found myself wanting to paint for emotional relief. I also purchased a Cricut Maker that went on sale at Costco. I’d been eyeing it for crafting purposes for a couple of years. I watched YouTube videos to see all the projects I could make and to learn all the tricks. I was fortunate to catch all the Christmas sales and after Christmas clearance to stock up on paints, vinyl, wood, and supplies at greatly reduced prices. My husband purchased a Cricut hot press for me on Amazon as my Christmas gift. I’ve found many premade designs and fonts in the ETSY Store for a nominal cost and easily downloaded them onto my computer for use. This completely eliminated the need for the $10/month Cricut subscription. The Dollar Tree has been my go-to place for multiple surfaces to embellish and for small paint canvases. I even found youth t-shirts to customize at the Dollar Tree. I have so much stuff to work on to keep me crafting in 2023. And it’s been nice watching my husband put his wood working skills to work for some of my projects.

Although I paint like a 5-year-old and my crafting skills aren’t that great, I’ll enjoy crafting when I’m home. But with two new grandsons on the way, I plan to spend a lot of 2023 on the road visiting these precious little ones or filling in with childcare for their busy parents. I sometimes wonder if they waited for me to retire to have their babies. In some ways it is nice that they are older parents with established careers, but pregnancy after 35 isn’t the best way to go. I message to young women seeking a career first is to freeze those eggs. We’ve talked about driving to Texas for Michael’s granddaughter’s college graduation and then taking our time to sightsee in New Mexico. In any case, my crafting projects will likely be focused on the kids and the grandkids as I have very little desire to accumulate more things.

And that leads me to my one resolution for 2023. I’m going to get rid of things in a big way. I plan to send precious items to the kids. I plan to update my will. I plan to throw things away and shred papers. I plan to have a huge garage sale by this summer. And I plan to donate items to charity. My first task though is to reorganize my crafting space to accommodate all my new supplies.

My goal for the new year is to be lean and clutter free moving forward. I did one pass through when I first retired, getting rid of a lot of things. But now that I’m in my second year of retirement, I realize how much less I want or need. So, 2023 will be the year I achieve freedom from extra weight and extra stuff.