Month: April 2026

I’m not adverse to conflict. In fact, I enjoy a good debate on significant topics. My late brother and I often argued for the fun of it at family gatherings. Outside guests had to be told that our loud debate was not vitriolic, although the topic was always serious. Now a particular son-in-law fills the void my brother left after he passed away. However, I’m rarely the one to pick a fight. But admittedly, I rarely shy away from a fight worth having.

When I was a young woman, my mother taught me to pick my fights carefully. Some issues are simply worth letting go while others deserve my attention. I think about the consequences of allowing an issue to pass without serious input. I ask myself if the opinion being proffered should be allowed to linger and travel throughout society unchallenged. If the answer is no, then I’m going to engage. For example, I can’t pass up a vaccine debate. To the chagrin of some of my fellow educators, I won’t argue the merits of public over private schools. The most recent ongoing debates my son-in-law and I have are about the necessity of rules, laws and regulations. He views them as not only unnecessary, but actual impediments to his freedom and to a free market. I view them as necessary protections against exploitation and chaos.

Lately, our country has been embroiled in arguments over the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Most who argue against it seem to mischaracterize it altogether. They contend that the country has been handing over positions to women and people of color simply because they are women or people of color. That isn’t true. They don’t appreciate that DEI is simply about opening previously closed opportunities to women and people of color who are qualified for these positions.

Too many Americans fail to acknowledge that white men who previously secured these coveted positions, often got them based primarily on friendships, sponsorships, connections, and kinships despite their lack of actual qualifications. I’m convinced that having a black president was a huge wake- up call for many that the days of white male hegemony were coming to an end. Republicans soon realized that the DEI policies that allowed Barack Obama to thrive were a threat to their future finances, power, and status because these policies required them to compete with people who prepared hard to gain the education, expertise and experience that qualifies them for positions of influence. Years of entitlement made them lazy and complacent and unable to compete with the likes of Barack Obama, and they worried for those coming up behind him. It was worrisome to see that their mediocrity and connections were no longer enough to propel them forward in a country they claimed ownership of and where they saw themselves as the rightful rulers.

So, they picked a fight that I always knew was coming. The first blow was electing Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton, even though on every metric she was far more qualified than he was. Whenever I hear someone say that DEI went too far, I recognize that their argument is rooted in a mythology of white male supremacy that is subconsciously difficult for many people to abandon. DEI did not go too far. No one was hiring unqualified people to fly planes, become doctors, teachers, scientists, firemen, lawyers, or corporate executives. If anything, the people who were hired were beyond qualified for the position and had overcome extraordinary obstacles to rise to their positions. They had to overcome teachers who said girls shouldn’t and children of color can’t. They had to continually overcome stereotypes and prejudices by repeatedly proving their excellence. They were never given the benefit of the doubt like their white male peers. Through the years they developed resilience, defiance, and a very thick skin that drove them to dare to apply for positions that had been previously closed to them.

The fact that white Americans refuse to acknowledge the reality that women and people of color came to positions based on merit, and worse, continue to believe that they couldn’t possibly possess the merit in the first place is a disgusting legacy of the white supremacy this country was founded on. So, now, out of rebellion, the white backlash has returned us to that old system of cronyism where money, connections and loyalty secure positions of power and influence. An incompetent degenerate like Donald Trump is the president. We see a ridiculous person like Pete Hegseth running our military and an entire Cabinet of unqualified clowns making bad decisions and corrupting our rule of law. Their lack of education, experience, expertise, morality, and commonsense has brought us to the brink of disaster.

Without much foresight, this Administration picked a fight with our news media. They picked a fight with government workers. They picked a fight with our former allies. They picked a fight with immigrants. They picked a fight with women and minorities. They picked a fight with the environment. They picked a fight with the Constitution and the rule of law. They picked a fight with Iran. And now this President and several of his Cabinet members have picked a fight with the Pope. These are fights they cannot and should not win for the sake of the world. The good news is that people of conscious are fighting back in courts, on social media, and in the streets because they recognize, as I do, that some fights are worth having.

This week I am in Las Vegas for a rest from politics. I’m lending moral support to my daughter’s fertility journey. She purposefully spent her twenties and thirties concentrating on her career and building wealth. While she has no regrets and is proud of her many accomplishments, she and her husband only recently decided to have children. But it hasn’t been easy and at her advanced age, insurance won’t cover the cost. We have heartfelt conversations about the roller coaster of hope and disappointments that has been part of her nearly four-year quest to have a baby. I’m happy to be here for her even as the news this week presented yet another delay in her upcoming embryo transfer. I’m counting on the fervent prayers of a loving mother to make a difference.

Perhaps my daughter needed a distraction, but she decided to use my visit to redecorate the main level of her home here in Vegas. Utilizing my interior design certificate and experience, I decorated her first house and later this house 15 years ago. I decorated both her offices in Woodland Hills and New York. With my daughter’s conceptual direction, her substantial budget and her chauffeuring skills, I’ve been busy planning, coordinating, organizing, online and in store shopping, donating items, accepting deliveries, painting walls and spray-painting items, reupholstering, interviewing a new cleaning lady, cleaning, and more shopping. The downstairs is turning out beautifully; however, some furniture and area rugs won’t be delivered until I’m gone.

As a reward for my work, we are doing the full “Vegas foodie” experience, visiting the top viral eateries around the city for our meals. It’s been great fun. So far, my favorite has been Taco El Gordo. I think we’ll have to revisit that place again before I return home.

The crown jewel of the trip is the Bruno Mars concert at Allegiant Stadium last night. Attending one of his concerts has been on my bucket list for a very long time. My daughter and I went to great lengths and expense to secure tickets in the online Ticket Master battle with his many fans and with dynamic pricing. We paid too much for our great seats which included an exclusive lounge area (a pleasant surprise), but it was well worth it. Bruno was delightful and the staging was beautiful. I enjoyed every minute of his performance. My only complaints are that we had to stand up for too long cause folks just had to dance and sway as they sang along. And it was way too loud. Thankfully my daughter secured free ear plugs from an usher who had plenty of them handy. Every few minutes the noise alert on my iPhone watch went off to warn me of the potential damage I was doing to my hearing. In sum, the “Mr. Romantic” concert tour is well worth the price of admission and minor inconveniences.

I’ve allowed myself to be too busy this week to pay attention to the chaos that has enveloped our nation. I’m not quitting the fight, I am taking a mental rest to refresh, recover, and rejuvenate so that I can come back stronger and more determined to do my part to set our nation on a much better path. I’m following the advice of a line in one of my favorite poems by Edgar Albert Guest. It states: “rest if you must, but don’t you quit”.

Happy Easter or Resurrection Sunday! I pray all those pseudo-Christians like Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, remember that Jesus is the Prince of Peace, not the God of War; the One who commands us to love our neighbor, to pursue truth, to welcome the stranger, to care for the poor, sick and imprisoned, and to forgo wealth and earthly power in favor of everlasting life. Now on to the content of my post today.

This past Friday, I told my husband that I was convinced that an email he received from “Costco” was a scam. So, he didn’t open it, but while we were at Costco, he showed it to a representative at the customer service desk. The email invited him to click and win a Costco prize. The representative confirmed that it wasn’t from Costco and another woman in line quickly acknowledged that it was a scam and that she too had received that same email. I applauded him for not falling prey to it.

The fact is, there are so many more scams circulating than usual because this president pardons people convicted of major fraud while also gutting government protection agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). So many career employees and prosecutors have been fired or resigned under DOGE that criminals are having a field day. No one is protecting us.

In fact, our situation is becoming more precarious on multiple fronts. For example, the vast amount of quack medicine and fake remedies found on Instagram and Face Book reflects his appointment of snake oil salesman, Dr. Mehmet Oz to run Medicare and Medicaid and conspiracy theorist, Robert Kennedy, Jr. to the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. In January 2026, this administration removed us from the World Health Organization, and they have defunded a lot of critical medical research and disabled the operations of the Center for Disease Control (CDC). And just as worrisome, the Big Beautiful Bill will result in approximately 16 million people losing healthcare coverage by 2034 according to the Congressional Budget Office (CDO).

Even the clean air and water we rely on is under attack with fewer career staff left in place to monitor environmental threats and with significant rollbacks in environmental regulations. Allowing companies to pollute our air and water in favor of financial gain doesn’t make long term sense. Don’t they realize that dead and dying customers can’t buy products? In addition, this administration is allowing AI data centers to deplete access to clean water and electricity while also contributing to noise pollution in unsuspecting poor communities around the country.

Most people are disheartened by the high cost of food and gasoline these days. First, the tariffs raised our prices and now Trump’s senseless war in Iran has raised the cost of gasoline, airline flights, shipping costs, and basic goods. Almost 20% of our fertilizer has to travel through the Strait of Hormuz, so this will create a shortage of fertilizer that farmers rely on. We are going to experience even higher food costs as farmers plant fewer crops.

It’s disheartening to consider, too, the job losses being threatened by AI. No one in our government is having a serious conversation about what to do about the millions of people whose lives that will be disrupted by job losses to AI robots and AI agents. Just recently, Melania Trump walked onto stage with a robot by her side to sell the idea of robot teachers in every classroom as a step forward in education. Replacing humans with robots without finding a meaningful role for humans is a disaster in the making. And who among us wants our children to be taught by a robot?

And finally, Americans are being bombarded with lies, AI slop, revisionist history, and so much misinformation that it is becoming increasingly difficult to know what and whom to believe. My husband discovered that one of his favorite new singers wasn’t even a real person, but an AI character. The reality is that we could never trust anything coming from Trump’s mouth, but now our corporate media are complicit either echoing his lies or remaining silent about the truth for fear of retribution. The state takeover of news is upon us, making us no different from Russia, North Korea or China.

In my opinion, we are quickly heading towards a failed state. Before our eyes, this government is losing its ability to effectively govern, protect us, and provide basic services to us. In fact, Trump just admitted that his only priority for the federal government is funding the military. He is completely neglecting the other two roles given to the federal government by the Constitution beyond providing for the common defense. It is tasked with promoting the general welfare and ensuring the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Instead, he wants to recruit our young people to be the might behind his bullying.

If we do not stop him, we will not only become a poor and sickly nation, but an isolated one. We will devolve into a country like North Korea where the people are hungry, sick, silenced, and lack information and an innovative spirit. Before our eyes, the things that made the United States prosperous are quickly being stripped away. Our diversity has been the key to our innovation. Instead of welcoming the best brains and hardest workers, we are deporting them or denying them entry. Our freedom to speak, to innovate, to pursue education, to love whom we want, to be who we are, to make decisions about our health, and even our freedom to worship are being challenged. We are no longer investing in the health and education of our population, but instead the very wealthy are pocketing our tax-payer dollars for self-gratifying pet projects.

It’s a sign of decay when those in positions of power were promoted not based on merit, but based whiteness, maleness and loyalty to a thug. Just look at the military under Pete Hegseth. He just fired experienced generals. He removed more than a dozen women and black men from a military promotion list based solely on their race and gender. He also announced that there would only be a protestant Good Friday Easter Service for the military. Such blatant displays of discrimination against women, people of color and now Catholics, portends the coming failure of our nation if we do nothing. Competence, expertise, and experience in leadership roles matter. When those are absent, bad decisions are inevitable.

However, we do not have to sit by helplessly as our country slides into failure. Now is the time to protest, to support more lawsuits, to pressure our representatives, to cast our votes, and to loudly demand that our Constitution and the rule of law be restored. We can take it as a sign of our resolve that Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem were fired but notice that he replaced them with white male loyalist who are equally unqualified. We must remind ourselves that our tax dollars are paying for every cruel and reckless decision. Perhaps states can begin to withhold the dollars they send to the federal government in collective protest while also providing the healthcare, education, and social safety net we need.

The reality is that if we do nothing, we will no longer be a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and endowed by the creator with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Without a fight, this country will join the list of failed states where it is every man for himself. My prayer is that the current fight for our nation remains peaceful.

On this Easter Sunday, may the Prince of Peace guard, strengthen and give us the wisdom to pursue and obtain transformation by peaceful means.