Welcome to America
Month: January 2017
Wall Reimbursement
“I don’t feel like waiting a year or year and a half. We’re going to start building. Mexico in some form and there are many different forms, will reimburse us and they will reimburse us for the cost of the wall. That will happen. Whether it’s a tax or whether it’s a payment.” (D. Trump in last week’s Press Conference)
How about this form? Does this form work for you, Donald?
Check out NPR’s Trump Press Conference Annotated.
Draining the Swamp
If only.
Just Do Something
PLEASE.
Protest. March. Speak out. Take action. Volunteer. Call a Congressperson. Boycott. Donate. Do a random act of kindness. Doodle.
Please don’t accept this surreal and dangerous reality we are stepping into without a fight.
John Lewis Deserves Better Than This
Okay, this is more than I can bear.
Attacking John Lewis is like attacking Buddha, Malala Yousafzai, Jesus, Gandhi, or Ewoks.
I can’t think of many living human beings who I consider to be heroic in this day and age. (Sorry. I know that seems incredibly cynical, but that’s how I feel.)
John Lewis is one of my heroes.
His contributions to the Civil Rights Movement and to this country are epic. Time and again John Lewis was willingly ready to sacrifice HIS LIFE in order to obtain and preserve justice and equality, and he did it with grace, compassion, love, and dignity. John Lewis is a REMARKABLE MAN.
In fact, after I moved beyond the self-pitying stage of my post-election grief I started to worry about John Lewis. That’s how much I admire this man. I found myself overwhelmed with anger as I thought about everything he has valiantly worked for crumbling beneath the deranged iron fist of the Trump administration.
Back in November, before I had even mustered up the courage to create this website or post my half-baked doodles, I started brainstorming ideas for a John Lewis doodle.
Don’t know much about Congressman John Lewis? You should. Here are some videos to check out: (and yes, Trevor Noah, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Anna Deavere Smith, and Stanley Nelson are some of my other heroes):
John Lewis on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
John Lewis on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
John Lewis on The Colbert Report.
Anna Deavere Smith portraying John Lewis in her brilliant show Notes from the Field.
John Lewis from the documentary The Freedom Riders. (Watch the whole documentary while you are at it.)
And some words of wisdom from this man I admire so much:
“There was a moving feeling within me that I was sitting there demanding a God given right and my soul became satisfied that I was right in what I was doing. At the same time there was something deep down within me, moving me, that I could no longer be satisfied or go along with an evil system that I had to be maladjusted to, and in spite of all of this, I had to keep loving the people that denied me service.”
~John Lewis, Civil Rights Leader (Quote taken from NBC’s White Paper: Sit in)
I don’t know about you, but I won’t be going along with any “system” that attacks someone like John Lewis.
I’m ready to get into some “good trouble.” Are you?
Never Doubt
Let’s try and end this week on a positive note.
Nuts.
Yes We Can! And We Must!
Ohhhhhh, Obama. And Michelle. And Malia. And Sasha. And Bo. And Sunny. (Yes, they got Sunny in 2003…also a Portuguese Water Dog.)
You will be SORELY missed. Grace, dignity, intelligence, passion, wisdom, integrity, heart, soul, and so much more replaced with…
Nope. Can’t go there tonight.
We All Lose
MERYL STREEP is NOT OVERRATED.
Even Donald Trump thinks she’s “excellent” and a “fine person.” I guess he just forgot that.
Just watch this classy, divine actress eloquently and passionately articulate what so many of us are feeling.
And check out some of my favorite comics chiming in on this.
Required Reading for Donald Trump
I don’t even know what to say about Donald Trump and Russia, and Donald Trump’s supporters who aren’t calling him out on this. If Hillary or Obama were “cozying up” to Putin the way Trump is, there would be epic outcries.
But then again, nothing really make sense right now, so why should this be any different?
