The "Liberal Arts"

I graduated from Sweet Briar College in 1979. I majored in Music and Fine Arts. I studied three modern languages. I studied music history, art history, and theater history. I took two semesters of European Civilization. I composed rondos and song cycles and analyzed music scores of symphonies. I found overlap of other courses in the ones I was currently taking. I learned Greek philosophy, history, and cultural references.

On final examinations, my professors didn't want a regurgitation of my notes. They wanted me to demonstrate that I UNDERSTOOD the nuances, the connections, the relevancy, and the application for new situations. Even the foreign languages.

While I had my own individual program of education, my friends shared many of the courses I took. Some specialized in English Literature, Modern Dance, History, Economics, Biology, et al. We could discuss any pedestrian subject at a meal and pull out a cultural reference that the others understood.

I thought I was learning everything that ALL educated people should know. Now I know better.

I am more than educated. I am cultured.

While I don't present myself as Elite, unfortunately by default, that's what I am. I know more than many other college graduates. I know how to employ critical thinking and how to defend my theses. Without a second thought, I'll let slip a "common" French phrase that is incomprehensible. Even using certain English vocabulary turns into an exercise of using a foreign language among certain people.

While I value the advantages that Liberal Arts have given me, I also feel humbled because I also believe that this kind of education is for a privileged few. And there were plenty of students at Sweet Briar who took the courses and didn't seem to be transformed by this Knowledge.

I'm not saying that I know "too much." I have a feeling of democracy where on one hand, I wish it were more widely available; and on the other hand, it would be deferred or refused as it would be irrelevant to the needs of others who depend upon raw survival, not a heightened awareness of society, the world, and culture.

Epilogue: In light of its survival, Sweet Briar College is a now a low-impact liberal arts college. In order to attract more students, it has altered its curriculum to CORE where courses are directed towards the goals of leadership and immediate applicability. Many of the language courses are gone. Music is no longer music history in eras or music theory. While there is performance, there is no theater history. What I was fortunate enough to have is no longer offered. I understand why. The college would have disappeared from the face of the earth without sufficient enrollment and would have had the same result of no liberal arts.

All I can do as a teacher in elementary schools is to try to introduce the principles I garnered from my four years. And hope for the future.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez takes to House floor and slams Ted Yoho's misogyny and false apology

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not mince her words as she completely annihilated Congressman Ted Yoho.

IT'S ABOUT TIME ! ! !

A personal corollary

In 1984, I was 26 and working in a NYC daycare center. I was the kindergarten teacher. I watched as, one-by-one, students contracted chicken pox. I didn't remember getting CP as a child but guessed I was immune. Not so.

One morning in the middle of July, like today, I woke up with a single small vesicle on my tummy. I knew what it was right away. I called my father, a doctor, that I believed I had chicken pox. He dismissed me out-of-hand, claiming I already had it. I was demeaned for being an amateur pediatrician. He didn't even say, "Let me see later when I return." More vesicles appeared, red and itchy and resembling small blisters. By the time Dad showed up that evening, I was covered head-to-toe. He had to concede to my "diagnosis". In the meantime, I had gone shopping for Aveeno Oatmeal Bath, Benadryl cream, had shortened my fingernails, and found winter mittens to wear to bed.

My point: Not that anything could have been done to stop the inevitable "progress" of chicken pox once it started, but my father, a doctor, refused to consider that CP at my age could have consequences after the condition had abated. He didn't even know whether I had had them and we lived together for more than two decades. I had to handle my situation alone and without internet to find useful information.

I ended up going to a dermatologist instead of a pediatrician as I figured scarring was going to be an issue.

Gotta admire his "positive attitude".

Democrats need a Super-Majority in the Senate or an end to the filibuster.

Not just a majority. 61 or more democratic senators.

There's a good chance that Mitch McConnell will be re-elected, and thus also be elected as Minority Leader in the Senate. You remember what kind of leverage he had during Obama's two terms. He blocked nearly all legislation being put up for a vote. Not judiciously, but rather arbitrarily. Even if McConnell isn't re-elected, the republican block will elect someone who will follow Mitch's "strategy" to block all democratic proposed legislation. Bipartisanship is a pipe dream.

On the other hand, if Democrats are the majority, they can take away the stick in the hand of the Minority by voting to take away the filibuster and let a simple majority pass legislation. Yes, it cuts both ways: if Democrats are in the minority, and say Senate Republicans propose a federal law that outright bans abortions in all 50 states and U.S. territories, it will pass. The filibuster would have stopped it from coming to a vote. But I've come to the conclusion that the filibuster is not being used by Republicans (nor will it continue to be used) as originally intended. For the foreseeable future, the filibuster will be used to neutralize any legislation even if there is a Democrat in the WH, a democratic majority in both the House and the Senate, save for a super majority, which is statistically very difficult to expect.

I grew up in a household with an authoritarian father whose mantra was Cognitive Dissonance.

From the time I could verbalize, I was pointing out contradictions that seemed obvious to me. By the time I was an adolescent, we were having tirades, again, with me speaking reality and my father sticking to his delusions. In my thirties, when I agreed that one of his employees was not working and collecting salary, he was so incensed that he withheld the money he promised me to attend law school. Dad tried to laugh it off, saying "I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong."

Mom tried to challenge him, but she lacked the will to be successful (not that she would have succeeded where I failed). I think one of the worst things about being raised in this environment is seeing how that affected my siblings. To this day, my sister still can't think critically and believes whomever is the most persuasive, not whom is correct. She doesn't often give me credence. (It got so bad at one time in her life that she actually requested that our parents find her the right guy to marry. Fortunately, she married my BIL before that could happen.)

I get no pleasure remembering these memories. I know I suffered for challenging my father at every turn. But my sanity wasn't negotiable.

On this date, 41 years ago, I strapped on a backpack with a T and jeans and sneakers.

I went on a solo adventure for 13 weeks, walking through Scotland, England, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland (nine countries). Got to know the people, the currency, the art, the music, the food, the beer. And I had no idea where I was going or where I'd be sleeping that particular night. I knew a functional amount of French, Spanish, Italian, and German -- only to have my subjects respond in better English than my attempts in their language. And not once was I dining in McDonalds. Ate the local cuisine with the regulars. One of the cool things, besides the memories, is the fact that I can remember a block of 90+ days of my life, each day.

I did everything: Tower of London, Mme Tussaud's Wax Museum, Notre Dame Cathedral, The Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa, David in the Academia dell'Arte, The Vatican, The Forum, The Colosseum, The Tower of Pisa, Naples at Night, Oktoberfest, Tivoli Gardens, the Grand Canal of Venice, and more.

Total cost was a little more than $2,000, the bulk going to airfare, Eurrail & Britrail cards. I lived frugally, two meals a day, one of which was a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. The hostels were $3 to $5 a night.

This was right after I graduated college. My father offered me a choice: a car or Europe. Never regretted my choice.

Putting aside what did Trump know and when did he know it, Trump's response shows

that he continues to be OK with Russia making a contract with the Taliban to pay a bounty on every American soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Any other president would be (at least publicly) outraged, have a press conference or a nationally televised speech, and/or go on Twitter. And announce what he knows. And announce new and severe sanctions against Russia. I mean beyond what he's imposing upon China, Iran, and Venezuela put together. Rally 'round the Flag, Boys, etc.

But he's playing golf. Focusing on stone monuments, statues, and the Stars-and-Bars. Distracted. Disinterested that the bounty is still in effect.

It's what he's doing now as well as what he could have done.

Fathers' Day

I'm not celebrating.

It's not because my father passed six years ago.

I wasn't celebrating when he was alive as well.

My father was abusive, toxic, and an authoritarian. I was defiant and stood up to him and paid the price. My sister was 180 degrees and sucked up to him, if only for fear, esp. as she saw the treatment I got. I went to therapy for 3-1/2 years and still had malingering issues concerning him.

I was the one of three children who stayed close to where he lived until the end of his life, if only for the duty to our late mother, to make sure he was okay.

He disinherited all of us at the end. He showed more affection for the neighbor across the street than he did for any of us, including our sister.

The trauma must be equally deep in our sister. In denial. She posted on FB: "Forever loved, not forgotten." I can only endorse the second part.

And they write their Wills . . . . . .

As mentioned earlier, my father disinherited me and my siblings in his final Will. And left $35,000 to the neighbor across the street.

As Dad descended into his extreme narcissism and role as a toxic parent, we found out that he made a new Will every year for a decade, disinheriting us. My sister was originally going to be his Executor, but when she expressed concern about his terrible neglect of a puppy he bought, he deleted her and replaced her with the law firm that drafted the Will.

Matter of fact, most of the $1.5 million estate went to that law firm for drafting and executing the documents, being the Executor of the estate, being the Attorney for the estate, and paying six-plus months of unpaid bills that he refused to acknowledge. (My sister and I offered several times to do it -- for free -- but he refused.

The Old Narcissist essay above fits our father to a T.

None of us cried when he died.