"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"

See here.

Thus far, President-elect Trump has chosen for his cabinet and various agencies:

• three generals
• someone with no experience in education and a negative attitude toward public schools as Secretary of Education
• a person currently participating in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency as head of that same agency
• an investor and former banker to regulate business as Secretary of Commerce
• an opponent of the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") and a woman's right to choose as Secretary of Health and Human Services

And I missed a few.

I haven't quite decided whether the U.S. is about to undergo some semblance of a peaceful military take-over and/or whether we've just sold the federal government to the highest bidders (be the bids monetary and/or of the flattery-will-get-you-everywhere-with-Trump variety). 

The Secretary of Education will probably drive funding away from public education by offering parents government vouchers to send their children to under-regulated, or unregulated, private or religious schools that accept government vouchers (but probably don't accept special-education students).

The head of the EPA will, basically, turn the environment over to the fossil-fuel industry.

The Secretary of Commerce will ensure that Wall Street has every opportunity to rip us off.  So much for looking out for the working people.  Maybe we should just call this country USA.com.

And the Secretary of Health will try to take away not only health insurance, but the right to access a full range of family-planning options, from billions of people.

American women have only had the right to control our own bodies since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973.

Ohio is just the most recent state to try to take that right away from us.

If you haven't yet read A Handmaid's Tale, now would be a good time.  It's not only a book about how quickly independent women can be turned into slaves, but also, how quickly an entire free country--in the case of the book, that country is the United States--can be turned into a theocracy in which not even the men are truly free.

We thought that reproductive rights were safe.  But as we now see, they can be taken away at any time.  All it takes is a bit of patriarchal backlash.

What other rights might we lose under the new administration?

As I predicted months ago, I think freedom of speech may be among the first to go.

But you don't have to take my word for it.  Here's what FreePress.net just e-mailed me:

"Trump has tapped Jeffrey Eisenach, Mark Jamison and Roslyn Layton to head up his tech transition team. And it’s a clear signal that the president-elect is clogging the drain.

Eisenach works for Verizon and doesn’t think broadband monopolies are real.¹ Jamison, a former Sprint lobbyist, believes the FCC should be dismantled. Layton opposes the communication rights of real people in favor of the gatekeeper agenda of companies like AT&T and Comcast.²
All three are outspoken opponents of Net Neutrality."

We take our rights for granted, but we might do well to remember that, just a few years ago, a teenage girl, Malala Yousafzai, was nearly assassinated for campaigning publicly for the right for girls to go to school.

What will we have to do to preserve our freedom?


Update--Saturday Night Live nails it:


"Tapper (Beck Bennett) begins his interview with Conway (Kate McKinnon) by questioning Trump’s latest Cabinet picks, which include Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier, to head the EPA.
“Kellyanne, it’s almost like Mr. Trump appoints these people specifically to undermine the very agencies they head,” Tapper said. “Are these bad picks?”
“No, Jake, they are not bad,” Conway responded. “They are alt-good.”


CNN concurs--see this Monday, December 12, 2016 article (and do read past the headline, where you'll find not only a current, but a historical perspective):
Trump is appointing people who hate the agencies they will lead

French-fried, but not finished (a slightly-belated post re arson in Israel)

You can burn Israelis' homes to the ground, but you can't keep Israelis down.

A little of everything except politics

Return of the Kohanim

After many years of having no Kohanim (descendants of the Temple priests) in our congregation, we now have two!  One joined us last spring, the other is an old-timer who decided to go back to being a regular attendee.  It's nice to have a Kohen (or two) to call to the Torah.

I'm cuckoo for coconut oil

Some time back, I read that coconut oil, in addition to being good for parve* baking and good for the skin, was antibacterial and antifungal.  So, I began to use it on my feet, of all places, in the hope that it would cure my athlete's foot.  What happened was a pleasant surprise--not only did the coconut oil radically reduce the severity of my athlete's foot, but also, after about 10 months of daily use, it made some persistent callouses disappear.  The callouses are still gone, and the backs of my heels are much less rough.  Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a chemical-free treatment that works.  Try it, you'll like it!

Mixed messages regarding Golda Meir

Recently, the Golda Meir Square in midtown Manhattan was renovated.  But apparently, no one gave any thought as to where or how to re-install the bust of Golda Meir that had been featured prominently in the pre-renovation square.  By the time the bust was re-installed, a tree was already growing in the same box.  And said tree has now been decorated with Christmas lights.  Oy.  My apologies to Madam Prime Minister.

*Parve or pareve:  Containing neither red meat, poultry, nor dairy products.