Life of Wry

I watched a documentary tonight on the insurrection of two years ago (delayed a day b/c of last night’s Speaker vote). It was so damn unsettling. My heart felt like it was racing, I was vaguely nauseated, I got teary. The depth of people’s ignorance.. it just takes your breath away. The lies and manipulations, the conspiracies. And what it all lead to! And of course the pure evilness of the perpetrator (you know the one). I feel like I need a shower after watching it.

For my part, I’ll try to not be distracted by any of that evil, not let it in… just wrap myself in love, beauty, and all things honorable, truthful and dignified. I’ll surround myself with sane people only; find the spark of hope and optimism; always try to do the right thing. Probably other things too… those just come to mind. And damn, the documentary was produced by Drew Griffin, an incredibly decent, smart guy and a reporter I really liked at CNN, who passed away a month or so ago. RIP sir.

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In the “finding the spark of hope and optimism” department, I’m reminded of the best part of last night’s passing of the gavel ceremony …. it was new minority leader Hakeem Jeffries’s speech. Here’s the best part of that great speech:

“House Democrats will always put American values over autocracy…

benevolence over bigotry, the Constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues, economic opportunity over extremism, freedom over fascism, governing over gaslighting, hopefulness over hatred, inclusion over isolation, justice over judicial overreach, knowledge over kangaroo courts, liberty over limitation, maturity over Mar-a-Lago, normalcy over negativity, opportunity over obstruction, people over politics, quality of life issues over QAnon, reason over racism, substance over slander, triumph over tyranny, understanding over ugliness, voting rights over voter suppression, working families over the well-connected, xenial over xenophobia, ‘yes, we can’ over ‘you can’t do it,’ and zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation. We will always do the right thing by the American people.” 

That’s my kinda alphabet!

Oh, and there was one other highlight to last night’s interminable Speaker election process:

(That’s Katie Porter, democratic congresswoman from Orange County area… she clearly had better things to do while waiting for the republicans to beat each other up.)