Umbrella Academy Season 2

Tags

Umbrella Academy Season 2

Most fans of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy are probably already counting down to its release date on July 31. In case you missed it, here’s the first trailer that dropped this week.

And, here is the new full length single Here Comes the End, by Gerard Way that goes with it.

 

He Deserved Better …

Thank you to Jill for keeping the memory of Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi alive.

Filosofa's Word

Often in these days of the manic news cycle, with Trump dominating nearly every headline, we forget stories from a few months, or even a few days ago.  And I find that there is a portion of the people who don’t really care about anything that doesn’t appear to affect them directly.  The brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, therefore, may have been relegated to the backs of most people’s minds, but … pull it out and dust it off, if you will, just for a few minutes.

Mr. Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian dissident, author, columnist for The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel.  On October 2^nd, as his bride-to-be waited outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where Mr. Khashoggi had gone to obtain documents needed for his wedding, Mr. Khashoggi was set upon in a well-planned attack…

View original post 454 more words

Family Fridays #16

Tags

Family Fridays

Happy Friday my WP friends. I hope all of you have stayed safe and well this week. Here’s how things are going in Alabama.

As of yesterday, July 9, 2020, confirmed cases of coronavirus stand at 48,588 confirmed cases, with 1,042 deaths. That’s a difference of 8,984 new cases and 81 more people who have tragically lost their lives. We seem to be breaking multiple records. There were 2,164 new cases in the last 24 hours. Statewide, hospitalizations are skyrocketing and 88% of ICU beds are full, leaving only 202 beds available statewide.

Our apartment manager told me this morning that our city has officially been designated a hotspot. As such, in addition to the precautions they’ve already taken, masks are mandated in the management office, and only one person is allowed in at a time. I’ve taken to using the laundry room before 8:00 a.m. in order to finish up before others come in. Even my mask-eschewing, social distancing negating neighbor who I told you about a few weeks ago, is now admitting we need to take this more seriously. Of course he also said I have to give credit to Trump for instituting lockdowns, but it’s progress. Baby steps right?

I just keep thinking, hoping this will eventually pass. In the meantime I’m trying to keep my anxiety at bay with my daily walking, swimming, and French lessons on Duolingo. There’s also a Lowe’s about a mile away from us and their garden center is outside, so my hubby and I are thinking of taking a walk (with our masks), and getting a couple of African violets.

For this week’s positivity…Well, to tell you the truth I‘ve been a bit down this week and had the dickens of a time finding something that spoke to me. And then I stumbled upon this news story about Sacramento’s two-year-old Brody Alexzandr who has been named Tiny Hawk, by his legions of fans. Check this out!

So, that’s it for me. Let me know how y’all are doing!

 

Words To Remember

Tags

Election 2020, Lindsey Graham, Republican Voters Against Trump

While South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has become one of Trump’s most fervent backers, a few years ago he had this to say about our Dear Leader and Joe Biden.

This is a defining moment in the future of the Republican Party. We have to reject this demagoguery, and if we don’t reject Donald Trump we’ve lost the moral authority to govern this great nation.

~ Lindsey Graham, 2016 ~

THE ASSIGNMENT, by Liza Wiemer ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Anti-Semitism, Contemporary Fiction, Education, Homophobia, Racism, The Holocaust, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: August 25th, 2020

312 Pages

Synopsis: In the vein of the classic The Wave, and inspired by a real-life incident, this riveting novel explores discrimination and antisemitism and reveals their dangerous impact.

Senior year. When an assignment given by a favorite teacher instructs a group of students to argue for the Final Solution, a euphemism used to describe the Nazi plan for the genocide of the Jewish people, Logan March and Cade Crawford are horrified. Their teacher cannot seriously expect anyone to complete an assignment that fuels intolerance and discrimination. Logan and Cade decide they must take a stand. As the school administration addresses the teens’ refusal to participate in the appalling debate, the student body, their parents, and the larger community are forced to face the issue as well.

The situation explodes, and acrimony and anger result. What does it take for tolerance, justice, and love to prevail?

Author Liza Wiemer with Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff, the two teens who inspired the upcoming The Assignment.

Many people find it difficult to take a stand against the majority, no matter what the issue, and for teens, it’s nearly impossible when faced with peer pressure. In 2017, two teens, Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff took a courageous stand when their teacher gave their class the assignment of debating the Nazis Final Solution. For the pro side, students were asked to promote the slaughter of Jews. For those arguing against genocide, they were supposed to instead argue for forced sterilizations, ghettos, and concentration and work camps. The idea behind this exercise is that would foster critical thinking. Neither Jordan or Archer is Jewish, but they found the assignment morally reprehensible. If you’d like more on this story, please follow this link: https://www.newyorkupstate.com/schools/2017/04/oswego_teens_give_new_york_a_lesson_on_nazi_holocaust_assignments.html

THE ASSIGNMENT is inspired by these two teens and I found it very thought-provoking. Liza Wiemer has said she was originally going to write this from a third person omniscient perspective, but decided to switch to multiple povs after hearing from several agents. This was the best decision she could have made because it allows the story to pack an even more powerful punch. The chapters primarily alternate between Logan and Cade so you’re privy to their innermost thoughts. You also get glimpses into what other characters are thinking including the teacher, which lends even more nuance to this complex story. There are a couple of things which prevent me from giving this a perfect 5 stars. First, I found the dialogue formal and stilted a few times and it didn’t sound like teens talking to each other. And second, while I really connected with Cade due to the amount of detail about his personal life, unfortunately there wasn’t that same level of detail in regards to the other characters, not even Logan who I’d have liked to know more about.

As someone with Jewish heritage and a distant cousin who barely survived the death camps, I have very strong feelings regarding this. For me, there are certain things, no matter how well-intentioned, that should never be debated. An assignment requiring students to reenact Hitler’s Wannsee Conference to debate the Final Solution is one such topic. By opening this up for debate, you’re allowing for an argument to be made that the Holocaust was justified. Students can be taught about these events and the mindset behind anti-semitism without lending credence to these abhorrent beliefs. In her author’s note Liza Wiemer, in addition to relating her own experiences with anti-semitism as a child, gives some examples of other jaw-dropping school assignments that have been given out in recent years. These include a slave auction where white students bid on their black classmates, and an exercise where students were asked to write down “three good reasons and three bad reasons for slavery.” There are other examples as well, so it’s imperative that you read this section as well. Despite the couple of flaws I found, I highly recommend THE ASSIGNMENT for classrooms, libraries, book discussion groups, and community reads. 

 

 

 

Really, Tucker Carlson?

Thanks to Keith for his erudite assessment of Tucker Carlson’s despicable personal attacks against Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Purple Heart recipient, who lost both her legs while serving this country in Iraq.

musingsofanoldfart

I am not a fan of labels or name-calling. I find them to be lazy shortcuts used by the labeler to make people avoid actually looking at the argument of the labeled person. Sometimes, they are used to generalize a demographic group or time period. Often, they are used to denigrate someone or some group.

Fox News opinion host, Tucker Carlson, already being criticized for insensitive Black Lives Matter remarks last month, has made more offensive remarks. This time he is targeting Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth calling her a “moron,” a “fraud,” and a “coward” adding “she hates the country.” Per Carlson, she had the audacity to say we should have discussions around the continued veracity of various monuments.

Let’s focus on the last two labels – the coward one and hating our country, although the first two labels are inappropriate, as well. He called a wheel chair bound Purple…

View original post 286 more words

Pandemic Parodies

Tags

Hamilton Mask-up Parody Medley, Holderness Family, Pandemic Parodies

 

Whimsical Wednesday

Tags

Animated Shorts, “Bridge”, Ting Chian Tey, Whimsical Wednesday

 

On the Lighter Side ~ More Sarah Cooper, aka The Trump Whisperer

Tags

On the Lighter Side, Sarah Cooper, The Trump Whisperer

 

 

 

 

 

 

R.I.P. Charlie Daniels ~ October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020

A friend of mine, that I had known for some time, came up one day with an old guitar. I don’t know where he got it, I don’t know how long he’d had it, but he knew about two chords on it. He proceeded to teach them to me, and then we proceeded to go crazy over music.