Month: November 2025

I hosted Thanksgiving, and we had a wonderful time. Great food, great conversation, and lots of love to go around. I am now in the midst of decorating our home for Christmas while enjoying leftovers. No Black Friday this year because of the boycott.

This week, please catch up on one of my many past posts and I’ll be back next week with a new reflection.

Like most Americans, I’m past being shocked by the unhinged rhetoric coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth. He lies, he fabricates, he bullies, he blames Biden, he brags, he hurls insults, he extorts, and he encourages violence. There was never a more despicable American president in our history. The sad part is that there are enough mentally deranged hateful and insecure folks with guns who are willing to follow through on his veiled calls for violence against his political enemies.

Recently, Trump began calling Marjorie Taylor Greene a “traitor” and suddenly she became a target for elimination by his most rabid followers. This past Friday, she resigned her position in Congress under the weight of these death threats. What’s even worse is that he called for the actual death of six sitting lawmakers who are military and intelligence veterans because they made a video reminding servicemembers that they don’t have to follow “illegal” orders and that their oath is to the Constitution. He labeled their video “seditious behavior, punishable by death”. And even worse, Speaker Mike Johnson defended him, conveniently leaving off the “illegal” order part when talking to the press. His press secretary said any order by the president isn’t unlawful. But we know that isn’t true as he continues to bomb fishing boats in international waters assuming drug smuggling intentions (a criminal offense at best and without due process) and he lacks authorization for military action from Congress. These six democrat leaders were right to speak up to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. And sadly, I’m not surprised by the swiftness of the death threats against them coming from this president. He needs a compliant military to do his bidding.

Like many, I watch in dismay as Speaker Mike Johnson and national leaders in every sector of society buckle under the enormous pressure to either support the president’s fascist agenda or remain silent. Speaking up puts a target on their back personally or on the back of the University, law firm, agency, company or corporation they run. This president has sieged control through intimidation and so long as these leaders continue to yield to his demands or remain silent, our country will fall farther and farther into economic, educational, and moral decline. Our international reputation has been severely tarnished and the environmental and social safety nets we rely on are in danger of being eliminated.

We know and most leaders know that the Trump Administration is not only corrupt, but incompetent. They are making decisions every day that defy the Constitution, break laws, destroys education, lines their own pockets, hinders economic progress, feeds Trump’s ego, perpetuates violence, and disseminates misinformation. Trump isn’t solving problems; he is making existing problems worse while also creating new ones. Everyone with a brain sees and knows our national decline is happening in real time. Polls show that his support is under water on every issue from the economy to immigration.

But he doesn’t care. Trump has surrounded himself with men and women too immoral or too frightened of him to do what is right. It’s clear that he is the emperor who has no clothes. The people around him are too afraid to speak truth to power. Or worse, they don’t have the truth to tell because they are inexperienced, uneducated, or incompetent. Trump probably doesn’t know the bad news because he shoots the messengers with expert knowledge. Remember how he fired the person in charge of labor statistics because he didn’t like the numbers? There is a long list of competent people whom he fired for doing their jobs with integrity. So, those few who remain have good reason to be afraid and to only tell him what he wants to hear.

With the lack of expertise surrounding him, the bad policy decisions keep on coming. At this point, only courageous district and federal judges are standing in the gap, blocking many of his destructive decisions. However, that can’t last long. It is time that patriotic citizens step up to stop the decline and save what is left of our country. And after we do, we will need to rebuild a stronger and more resilient country to prevent a future Trump-like character from ever taking power again.

Right now, we must push political leaders and industry leaders to stand up and fight for what is good for the country. Boycotts work. Social media outrage works. Yesterday’s protest in Washington D.C., calling to impeach, convict and remove this president was another example of the kind of collective action that is needed. We have strong resistance coming from governors and a few congressional leaders from blue states or districts. But it’s clear that most leaders remain too intimidated to speak for now.

However, I predict that as Americans grow increasingly weary of the high prices, corruption, and absolute nonsense assaulting us on a daily basis, the political winds will shift, and leaders will feel more empowered to draw on the outrage, courage, and support from the people they lead. Only when we push and give them cover will our current leaders stand up to him. It’s obvious that this entire predicament has exposed the fact that we have elevated too many people to positions of power who lack good judgement, integrity, moral convictions, and the courage to do what is right. We’ll have to do better moving forward.

Ultimately, it is up to “we the people” to save our nation from the degenerate con man we elected to office under the false pretense that he can solve problems or the lingering racism and misogyny of too many Americans. Accountability can’t come soon enough and our sustained resistance on every front will make that happen.

Humans are hard-wired to learn. While learning styles may differ, the desire and ability to learn is not attached to a particular race or gender. From birth, we begin learning about others, our environment, cultural norms, and ourselves. Our survival depends on our gaining a sufficient level of education. We make decisions based on our understanding of what we have learned. In most of the world, a good education is connected to personal success and human progress. Education makes us harder to manipulate, less gullible, less vulnerable, and better able to solve problems, innovate, and to accomplish difficult tasks. Education gives us the foundation to ask new questions and to challenge assumptions. These are at the heart of human progress. Humans have the ability to learn throughout our entire lifespan, and I think that’s an incredible gift. I know the old belief isn’t true that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” because the research shows that you most certainly can!

But we’ve all known folks who claim that they don’t value education, particularly formal education, because they never pursued it. I’ve found that some who lack formal education feel threatened by people with earned degrees to the point of hostility towards the educated. This is increasingly true of young men who are opting out of college while young women are earning college degrees in greater numbers. Not surprisingly, the level of hostility towards educated women in this country is growing. These educated women desire educated men to marry, but in the absence of college educated men, they will settle for a cat. College is important because it represents a willingness to learn.

It is true that a degree doesn’t necessarily mean one person is inherently smarter than another, but it does mean that the person who pursued education likely has obtained greater knowledge in science, history, math and problem-solving skills. Whether because of a lack of opportunity, laziness, or intellectual challenge, less than 40% of Americans over age 25 have obtained a bachelor’s degree (U.S Census; 2023). That means the majority of Americans lack the basic knowledge and critical thinking skills gained through higher education and that should worry us, particularly since we have a president who claims to love the uneducated and it is the uneducated who are overwhelmingly supporting him. It is their lack of education that makes them vulnerable to his lies and accepting of his bullying, his ridiculous protestations, and his corruption. They easily fall prey to the cult of personality above substance.

History has shown us that people who are greedy for money and power, usually men, have used violence to withhold education as a means to exploit and control others. We saw it when slaves were not permitted to learn to read nor write. We saw it with the Taliban forbidding girls to attend school, and sadly we are beginning to see it here again. Republicans are relying on the anti-education policies under the leadership of Donald Trump as a means to maintain power and expand their wealth. We know that Trump was a poor student by all accounts and is clearly an anti-intellectual leader. Republicans are using his lack of education and intellectual laziness to exploit his sociopathic instincts. They know he makes decisions based on what will bring him money, loyalty oaths, and praise rather than the data presented by experts. In fact, experts have been replaced by quacks and other incompetents who lack professional credibility and experience.

Educated people are aware that leaders who ban books, discard or rewrite historical narratives, trade religious myths for science, devalue expert knowledge, ignore or fabricate data, defund University research, ban foreign students, defund educational aid and seek control over curriculum and hiring decisions have an agenda to destroy actual education. We can see that the desire of Republicans to siege permanent control by plunging more Americans into national ignorance is a fool’s errand and won’t end well for the nation. We are watching the brain drain in real time as other nations welcome our best researchers and graduate students as well as the brilliant foreign students we are rejecting. This country will find itself in intellectual decline within a few years.

Someone needs to tell Republican leaders that ignorant people make bad personal choices. Ignorant people know too little to contribute much by way of the innovation and problem solving needed to fuel an economy. Ignorant people turn to violence rather than reason to solve conflicts. Ignorant people can’t oppose destructive public policies. Ignorant people rely heavily on emotions, conspiracies, gut feelings, and myths rather than numbers, science, data, and history to make important decisions. And ignorant people feel so threatened by those with education, that they attack them, contributing further to the brain drain gripping the nation. Think about what that means for the rest of the world when you have an increasingly ignorant American population with a huge army and nuclear weapons at their disposal. Suddenly, we become a clear and present danger to the rest of the civilized world.

Before we allow ourselves to jump off the educational cliff to satisfy the egos of mediocre wealthy white men, we need to say “no”. Our votes in the midterm election as well as in our local school board elections, city council elections, our state elections are our collective way of returning to a nation that values and rewards education. In fact, we need to do a lot more than we did before Trump, not less, to ensure that our children, our grandchildren, and our nieces and nephews get a world class education. We need more men in k-12 classrooms to understand, mentor and encourage boys in their educational journey. I’m not saying that everyone needs a college education to be successful, but every citizen needs a strong basic education that includes science, math, reading and history. Women are attracted to intellectually competent partners with the potential to earn a good living. So, beyond high school, everyone needs either a trade or a college degree that won’t be made obsolete by AI.

As citizens, our commitment to education must be stronger than ever. And it must be unwavering. The time has come to rid ourselves and our country of these anti-education leaders before it is too late.

When I was growing up, my mother hated to hear us kids say that we were bored. Those summer days without school were the worst. She’d respond by saying that only boring people get bored. However, that gentle scolding didn’t prevent that awful feeling that comes from not having something interesting or fun to do. I’m lucky that my mother supported all the activities I came up with to escape boredom.

The list of classes, sports, and other activities I tried out as a kid is extremely long. I tried and quit piano lessons, ballet, Hula, Judo, flute, modeling, and tennis. To varying degrees, I stuck with music, basketball, volleyball, cooking, sewing, knitting, acting, house dancing, crafting, and creative writing. At 12, I discovered a love for art museums and would walk about four miles to the Los Angeles Museum of Art where I would spend an entire day. While building a home for my Barbie dolls, I discovered a love for decorating, and so my mother allowed me to redecorate my room, then the family bathrooms, followed by other parts of the house.

I was encouraged to pursue the things I enjoyed and allowed to quit the things I didn’t. Sometimes I genuinely enjoyed an activity, but not the people or the vibe associated with it, so I’d quit. Other times my passion for an activity wasn’t strong enough to take it as seriously as others wanted, so I’d quit. And then there were times when I had passion but zero talent, so I’d quit. Ballet and piano fit that category. I was on a constant quest to find the perfect balance between my talents, passions, and cultural vibes surrounding an activity. I realize now that I had to like, trust, and respect the people involved and be comfortable in the environment to stay involved. I had a long list of accomplishments from early pursuits that I quickly abandoned.

For example, I choreographed a dance routine for my 6th grade graduation but didn’t pursue dancing nor choreography. I participated in a competitive acting troupe and starred in the one-person play, “Sorry, Wrong Number” but abandoned acting. I graduated as the “Outstanding Police Explorer Recruit” having ranked highest in both the written and physical fitness tests but left the law enforcement explorer scouting program after a year. I was on an elite traveling volleyball team but quit to play both volleyball and basketball in high school. I quit my winning high school volleyball team to play on a newly formed badminton team instead. In each case, talent and passion were present, but I didn’t care for the people or the vibe surrounding the activity.

I discovered a passion for travel when I took my first study abroad trip to Western Europe to study art, architecture, and culture. I spent 15 consecutive years traveling abroad after my last kid left for college. In college I got involved in sorority life and then got married and started having children. So, I put sorority life aside for several years. Right after college, I took a two-year interior design course and finished in just 9 months. I still love decorating homes and offices for fun, not for money. I never stopped loving art, music, dancing, sports, sewing, and cooking. Writing was a constant for me. I journaled every day, wrote plays, sermons, poems and speeches for school, church, civic groups, and work. I wrote three unpublished novels that I put on the hold because I couldn’t travel to promote them with three small children. All that practice writing made writing my dissertation for my doctorate pretty easy. I later assisted other doctoral students with the writing part of their dissertations. Blogging eventually became a fulfilling way to sort out my thoughts and emotions while hopefully helping others.

To this day, I still hate feeling bored. To avoid that feeling, I can’t be without a project or an agenda to fill my day. In retirement, it’s become a bit more challenging because I don’t have a job to go to everyday. I loved working. In particular, I loved my job. It fulfilled my need to help people, problem solve, complete challenging projects, organize and plan, and utilize my creative skills. I miss the simplicity of having a set destination every morning.

I’m concerned that my grandchildren won’t experience this. In the near future, technologist predict that young men and women won’t have to work as if work is a burden and not a potential source of fulfillment. I worry that AI will soon replace the jobs where young people can find purpose and escape from boredom like I did. They say that only a handful of jobs will remain after AI becomes fully enabled. That should worry everyone. Boredom is something most people want to avoid. The problem is that some people find destructive, not constructive activities to fill their time. There’s that saying that idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

The reality is that I’m one of those people who enjoys being active. I’m addicted to the feeling of accomplishment. Even in retirement, I measure my day by how much I’ve accomplished. It doesn’t take much. In fact, sitting quietly in my backyard, watching the birds take turns on the bird feeders counts as a valuable activity for me. Spending time with my husband, kids, or grandchildren is the most rewarding use of my time. I’m grateful that for most of my life, I’ve managed to avoid that feeling of boredom. And I’m still determined to avoid it. In early adulthood, I had my work in education and in business, raising my children, creating and maintaining a beautiful home, making delicious food, throwing dinner parties, volunteering in the community, crafting, reading, gardening, and writing. I was happy to fill in any remaining time with entertainment like travel, good television shows, movies, musical theater and concerts.

It’s funny how my retirement resembles my childhood. I’m back to trying different things to see what I like. I took a calligraphy class and pretty much gave it up after learning two different writing styles. Just no real passion for it. I tried learning Korean for a time, but it proved far too challenging for me. I started a Better Human campaign to counter the ugliness of MAGA but found it was too emotionally taxing to deal with MAGA nonsense. I resurrected and expanded my vegetable gardening and now grow much of our produce. I joined a knit/crochet group at the Active Adult Center and learned to crochet. I’m loving it and continue to expand my skills and list of projects. I jokingly run a test kitchen where I create new recipes or try out recipes from my massive cookbook collection. I purchased a Cricket design machine and occasionally enjoy to creating various projects. I’ve taken up Bocce Ball on Friday mornings with seniors from the Active Adult Center and I’m going on luncheon dates with old and new friends on rotation. And I really enjoy taking myself to lunch with a good book.

This past week, I joined hands with my daughter and AI to create four children’s books to help young boys build emotional intelligence. Of course, my grandsons serve as the motivation for this project. And finally, since several ladies at the Active Adult Center are more comfortable speaking in Spanish than in English, I have begun challenging myself to resurrect my Spanish skills. I studied abroad in Costa Rica at a Spanish language school back in 2011 after I spent a couple of years using cassette tapes, Rosetta Stone and Duolingo to learn Spanish. I love learning the structure of languages and becoming more fluent in Spanish is definitely a goal worth chasing.

On the entertainment front, I’m still into K-pop music. The combination of music, dancing, and production is amazing to me. I’m especially looking forward to BTS’s return this spring since they completed their solo projects and fulfilled their military service. I still enjoy a trip to the movie theater and the occasional non-violent Netflix or Hulu series. I’ve found that I’m especially fond of sports documentaries that highlight the lives of athletes as they compete at the highest levels.

Boredom is an emotion that I avoid at all costs, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’ve learned how to keep myself occupied and fulfilled, even in retirement. I just wonder what life will be like for those who may never know what it is to work for a living and who will be forced to remain in a constant state of childhood discovery trying to avoid boredom or seeking fulfillment.

Be careful not to become a greedy person. Whether it is greed for money, power, or praise, I think greed challenges our ability to share. Greed hijacks our sense of fairness, demanding a zero-sum game where winners take all and losers are impoverished. Normal people respond to a vast imbalance by giving because they are overcome by basic human emotions like compassion, guilt, or shame. But not the person who is consumed by greed. They are not normal. Their continuous pursuit for more is a perverted need that can never be satisfied, fails to deliver real joy, and invites the scorn of others. Greed leads to corruption, manipulation, lies, bullying, and lawlessness. The greedy person will say or do anything to satiate their craving for more. And then they become paranoid that others will take from them. Only a truly sick person needs to horde billions of dollars, seeks dictatorial powers, and requires a constant stream of praise and recognition. Sadly, I’ve just described the current president of our country.

Donald Trump finally acknowledged that he is not going to heaven. Any true Christian knows this. For starters, he encourages and enjoys cruelty, he finds it impossible to give to others, he can’t tell the truth, and revenge (not forgiveness) feeds his soul. He’s like the rich man who went away sad because he couldn’t bring himself to give his riches to the poor as Jesus asks of His followers. Jesus told his followers that it is far more blessed to give than to receive. And the Bible warns us that the love of money is the root of all evil. Trump is a walking and talking example of evil.

In a country led by Trump, we can decide to be a blessing to others instead of being greedy. The opposite of greed is generosity. Everyone wins when we are generous with our money, our time, our praise, and our power. I learn so much from the senior citizens at the Active Adult Center. Everyone I’ve met there is a giver. The ladies I knit and crochet with are among the most generous people I have ever met. I’m inspired by how they bless each other with small kindnesses in the form of advice, health check-ins, drives to the doctor, food, affirmations, and even crocheted pumpkins.

Last week, one of the ladies in our group gifted each of us a cute pumpkin she crocheted. The adorable pumpkin and the time and thoughtfulness behind it warmed my heart and made me smile. That joy I felt upon receiving the handmade pumpkin inspired me to crochet pumpkins to gift my kids, next door neighbor, and local service providers. I took the idea even further and baked small loaves of pumpkin bread and banana nut bread to expand my gift. As I gave them out, I was blessed to see the joy on the faces of my neighbors, my dentist’s receptionist, my two manicurists, and the staff members of the Active Adult Center.

These are some of the pumpkins I crocheted.

Beyond making gifts, the daily act of being a blessing to others takes the form of unsolicited sincere affirmations, a friendly greeting to others, small acts of kindness, a well-manicured front yard, good grooming, listening, pretty Christmas decorations, and of course giving to those in need.

As our government wastes our tax dollars to further enrich the wealthy, brutally kidnap brown and black immigrants, run concentration camps, blow up fishing boats in international waters without due process, bail out Argentina, fund presidential golf trips, and build a $300 million dollar ballroom at the White House, being a blessing means taking the time to express our disapproval and to demand better of our lawmakers.

But we may also need to dig deeper into our pockets as yesterday millions of Americans lost their SNAP benefits because Republicans refused to tap into the reserves during this shutdown. This shutdown is about preventing millions of people from losing their healthcare to skyrocketing premiums because the subsidies are set to expire. Thousands can’t afford housing. And even more are facing a crisis when it comes to paying for rising food, insurance and utility bills.

Charity begins at home. So, I urge my followers to check in on family members, neighbors and friends to ensure they are okay and help where you can. Then give as generously as possible to food banks and other organizations that stand ready to help those in need. Our small donations add up and inspire others to give as well.

In reality though, it may take reports of long food lines, medical bankruptcies, and stories of people dying to spark the compassion, guilt or shame in the ultra-wealthy who aren’t completely consumed by greed. However, we cannot wait for them to do their part. Our human decency, our joy, our peace of mind, and our need for community demand that we act to help each other. As we give, my sincere hope is that the wealthy who get the biggest tax breaks will be moved to do their part.

I know that there are many wealthy people who are not greedy like Trump. But too many of them are in fact a little greedy because the wealthy among us have the ability to end poverty if they were willing to give more or if our leaders were willing to levy fair taxes on them. We’ve learned over time that “trickle-down economics” doesn’t work because the funds rarely trickle down; they get horded instead, making the rich, richer.

Our job is to pressure our lawmakers to act on behalf of the American people, not just the wealthy. Journalists have the responsibility to expose the suffering that triggers compassion, guilt, and shame among those with more than their fair share. No matter what, I’m determined to practice the art of being human by experiencing the connection, joy, and fulfillment of giving to others. I’m determined to be a blessing because generosity is more beneficial than greed. Generosity strengthens the community and feeds the souls of both the giver and the receiver. The greedy person will never experience this joy nor find satisfaction. They drain society and contribute to pain and suffering.

Jesus was right that it is far more blessed to give than it is to receive. All that is required is that we listen to our heart and the giving will come easily.