Welcome, Gnusies and Gnewbies!
Happy Friday! I’m filling in for chloris creator while she’s on the road. Happy travels, cc, and I hope I can clear the very high bar you set for Fridays!
This has been an unusually challenging week for activists like us who believe that our best motivator is hope. All week, the two top stories on the news both pushed us toward fear and hopelessness: a terrifyingly close approach to war caused by the recklessness of our Psychopath-in-Chief, and heartbreaking destruction in Australia caused by the climate crisis resulting from the criminal greed of the fossil fuel industry and its governmental enablers.
But even in those two bleak stories, you can find hope:
War with Iran has become significantly less likely. First, because the House Democrats have stepped up once again to reassert the power of the legislative branch – yes, it won’t pass the Senate, but I think it sends a strong enough message to discourage IMPOTUS from escalation. And second, because, as Seraph4377 put it in a comment on Wednesday’s GNRU, “the leadership of Iran has chosen to be the goddamn adults in the room.” The downing of the plane in Tehran by an Iranian missile caused us all more anxiety, of course, but the evidence suggesting the hit was a mistake has calmed the situation. Bottom line at this point is that we’re no longer on the knife edge of war.
In Australia, heroic work is being done by firefighters, emergency services personnel, veterinarians, and volunteers, funded by donations from people all over the world. They aren’t winning yet, the fires are still raging, but in some of the places where the flames are out, new growth is beginning to poke up out of the charred ground, a sign that life will reassert itself wherever it can. It’s just a small sliver of hope, but it’s real.
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When I’m stressed out by the news I see and read, I usually turn to music for comfort. So today’s roundup will feature several musical selections that I think are good commentaries and/or antidotes to this week’s scary news rollercoaster.
There’s a wonderful quote I first saw years ago, attributed to an orchestra leader in Sarajevo who kept performing music throughout the siege of his city: “Music is everything that war is not.” In that spirit, I’ll begin with a couple of anti-war songs that have been playing in my head this week.
The first one takes me all the way back to my early adolescence. When I was around 12, I had a schoolmate whose parents were pacifists and folk singers, and they frequently gathered their daughter’s friends at their house for discussions and singing. That’s where I got my first taste of anti-war activism and sang anti-war songs like this one:
I love that this old spiritual reminds us that we can choose to “study war no more.” We don’t need to fill our heads with war news or let ourselves be ruled by fears of war.
The second anti-war song is a Vietnam War classic. “War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!”
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Now onward to some good news I’ve collected recently. Please feel free to add more!
Good political news
Here are more details about yesterday’s war powers vote in case you need ‘em:
House Votes to Restrain Trump’s Iran War Powers
From the NY Times:
The House voted on Thursday to force President Trump to go to Congress for authorization before taking further military action against Iran, in a sharp rebuke of his decision to ratchet up hostilities with Tehran without the explicit approval of the legislative branch.
The vote was 224 to 194, almost entirely along party lines, to curtail Mr. Trump’s war-making power.
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House Democrats opted to use a concurrent resolution — the type that is considered to be enacted once both chambers approve it and is never presented to the president for his signature — rather than a joint resolution, which Mr. Trump could veto.
“This is a statement of the Congress of the United States,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters, “and I will not have that statement be diminished by whether the president will veto it or not.”
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Only three Republicans — Representatives Matt Gaetz and Francis Rooney, both of Florida, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — along with the House’s lone independent, Representative Justin Amash, joined Democrats in supporting the measure. Eight Democrats broke ranks to oppose it.
Matt Gaetz is certainly a surprise “yea”! The eight rogue Dems are: Rep. Max Rose (NY), Rep. Anthony Brindisi (NY), Ben McAdams (UT), Stephanie Murphy (FL), Joe Cunningham (SC), Elaine Luria (VA), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), and Kendra Horn (OK). Gnusies, if any of these are your Rep., give ‘em a piece of your mind today!
Not Buying Trump Narrative, Majority of Americans Believe Soleimani Assassination Made US Less Safe: Poll
From Common Dreams:
Trump administration officials have repeatedly claimed the assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani last week made the United States safer, but a new poll published Thursday found that a majority of the American public disagrees and believes the White House's behavior toward Iran has been "reckless."
According to the national USA Today/Ipsos survey, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, 55% of the public believes the assassination of Soleimani made the U.S. either somewhat or much less safe, while just 24% said the killing made the country more safe. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they believe Soleimani's assassination made it more likely the U.S. would go to war with Iran.
The survey also found that 52% the public believes the Trump administration's Iran policies have been "reckless.”
This made me LOL:
Mnuchin begs Democrats to wait until after the election to disclose how much the Secret Service spends on Trump’s travel
From Raw Story:
On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is imploring Democrats to change draft legislation that would disclose how much the Secret Service spends securing President Donald Trump’s travel, so that the information is only made public after the presidential election.
The disclosure requirement is part of a broader bipartisan bill that would transfer control of the Secret Service back to the Treasury Department.
Sure thing, Steve! /s
Trump defender Stefanik buried in scorn for tweeting photo-shopped picture of Pelosi: ‘You are a disgrace to women’
From Raw Story:
New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik was hammered on Twitter for posting an altered photo of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) not once but twice in an effort to raise campaign cash for an expected rough election fight in 2020.
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You are a disgrace to women in politics everywhere.
What's it like to have no moral compass?
So it’s cool if we alter your photos? Good to know!
Let’s keep calling out the Gross Outrageous Punks like Stefanik every time they pull a stunt like this!
Wonkette’s Stephen Robinson, whom I adore, had this object lesson for Dems to remember in 2021:
Virginia Democrats Get Petty, And It Is A Glorious Sight
From Wonkette:
We've often argued that Democrats need to play hardball, and the new Democratic Senate majority in Virginia is showing how it's done. Yesterday, Republican state Sen. Amanda Chase learned she was serving on just one committee... She used to serve on three more... She's the only senator to serve on just one committee and the only Republican not in their first term who isn't on at least three.
But no one likes Amanda Chase for the complicated reason that she's terrible. Chase, who likes to pack a visible pistol on the Senate floor, ran a Facebook ad last September stating that she "wasn't afraid to shoot down gun groups." She later claimed the digital media company she hired "screwed up" her original ad.
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...there are 12 Democrats and just three Republicans on the Commerce and Labor committee, and the Finance and Appropriations committee has 11 Democrats and just five scraggly-ass Republicans. Minority Leader Norment is shocked and appalled.
NORMENT: A 12-3 distribution seems a little disproportionate to me.
Isn't it, though? Democrats don't dispute this. In fact, they point to how Republicans ran things when they were in power. The Commerce and Labor committee used to have 11 Republicans and four Democrats. The new Senate majority leader, Dick Saslaw, responded to Norment with epic shade.
SASLAW: We just figured this is what you all preferred. We tried to copy what you all did.
Oh snap! Let's hope US Senate Democrats are paying attention. We don't want to hear any bullshit about "restoring Senate norms" when Democrats regain the majority.
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Good news from my city and state
No American City Has Ever Tried a Climate Justice Tax Like the One Portland Is Launching. What’s the Plan?
From Willamette Week:
It’s a local version of the Green New Deal proposed in 2019 by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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The Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, or PCEF, will raise as much as $60 million a year from a new tax on big retailers. The money is supposed to supply clean, efficient energy and jobs to people the city has long slighted.
The overarching goals: to provide members of underserved communities with valuable skills while insulating, caulking and tweaking inefficient heating and cooling systems and installing rooftop solar panels at the homes of low-income Portlanders.
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Voters approved the tax in November 2018 by a landslide, 65 to 35 percent.
The entire article is worth reading since there’s a lot of nuance to this story. Wish us luck, because as the writer notes, “The fund could provide a road map for other cities—or it could end up a cautionary tale.”
Oregon Conservation Group Collects Christmas Trees For Salmon Habitat
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
The Tualatin Valley and Clackamas River chapters of Trout Unlimited will be collecting Christmas trees and recycling them into salmon habitat through their “Christmas for Coho” program.
The conservation groups have anchored around 4,000 Christmas trees in Oregon streams since 2012 to replenish the woody debris that used to be common in local waterways.
The trees slow the river current and give young fish a place to rest and hide from predators before they resume their journey out to the ocean. The trees also improve fish habitat by introducing a new food source for microorganisms at the bottom of the food chain.
Remember all the Rethug theatrics in the Oregon legislature when we were about to pass a climate change bill? Well, here’s the final act.
Judge dismisses suit against Democrats over access to Capitol, fines
From The Oregonian:
A federal judge on Tuesday threw out state Sen. Brian Boquist’s lawsuit against a Democratic leader and other legislative officials that followed a Republican walk-out over a climate change bill last year, ruling Boquist’s warnings to fellow lawmakers and state police amounted to threats.
Boquist, R-Dallas, filed the suit in July after a legislative committee voted to require him to provide 12 hours’ notice before reporting to the Capitol to give officials time to arrange for additional state troopers to ensure the safety of employees and the public.
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In a June 19 floor speech, Boquist told Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, “If you send the state police to get me, hell is coming to visit you personally.”
Soon after, Boquist also threatened state police, saying that if they were going to haul him back to the Capitol they should “Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”
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U.S. District Judge Michael McShane called Boquist’s statements "unprotected fighting words,'' saying they were threats..."Words, it turns out, sometimes have consequences,'' the judge wrote. "Defendants did not violate Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights.''
I see this as especially good news, because the Gasbag Obfuscating Posturers so often try to hide behind the First Amendment and too often succeed. Not this time! 😊
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Good news from around the nation
The Oakland women who took over a vacant lot to house the homeless
From The Guardian:
A miniature white picket fence lines the entryway into the homeless encampment of 37MLK in Oakland, where tents sit in neat rows, fairy lights glow overhead and chickens cluck around the grounds.
At least four homeless encampments sit along the mile of boulevard leading up to 37MLK from the city’s downtown, but where the other camps are shrouded in darkness after sunset, lawn lanterns provide light along paths at 37MLK. Whorls of decorative fake ivy dangle over the chain-link fence, mixing in with potted plants and splashes of art, adding beauty to the ugliest of situations. “Welcome to our home,” read a small paper heart near the entrance, before the winter rains washed it away.
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37MLK [is] a tent village created out of deliberate and coordinated intent; by community organizers taking over a vacant lot for the sole purpose of setting up a homeless encampment. It’s a community response to a housing crisis that has led to many black elders being pushed out of the neighborhoods they call home.
“You leave this land fallow during one of the greatest humanitarian crises in Oakland, pretty much ever, this mass homelessness?” said Stefani Echeverría-Fenn, one of the organizers, in a Facebook video announcing her intentions. “I will not abide by that. You can arrest me, but I’ll come back the next day, and I’ll bring more people.”
Hundreds of Americans Become Foster Families to Ailing Senior Veterans, Opening Up Their Hearths and Homes
From Good News Network:
Today in the United States, more than 82,000 veterans live in nursing homes...However, the Medical Foster Home program launched by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) in 2008 has been providing opportunities for a much more comfortable life to senior veterans who can’t live alone by allowing American families to open their own doors to the nation’s heroes.
“A Medical Foster Home can serve as an alternative to a nursing home…for veterans who require nursing home care but prefer a non-institutional setting with fewer residents,” says the DVA website.
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The program, launched in 2008, now has a presence in 44 states, and each family in the program is allowed to take up to three veterans into their homes in order to give them a more comfortable and personalized care environment.
The agreement is a long-term commitment, and according to Cathy Free at The Post, the veterans often live in the foster homes for the remainder of their lives.
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“Many of our caregivers and vets become family,” Cooper told Southern Living. “They take them on vacation. We recently spoke to a family who takes their veteran—a quadriplegic—camping twice a year. These are opportunities they never would have had.”
Princeton University is hanging a series of portraits that honor its blue-collar campus workers
From CNN:
Portraits on university campuses usually portray school founders, presidents and donors.
But at Princeton University, portraits of blue-collar campus workers are now taking center stage. A new set of paintings are offering a fresh perspective on the working class, racial struggle and empowerment at the Ivy league school.
Mario Moore, the artist behind the paintings, views his artwork as more than just decoration. By showcasing the university's workers, he wants to pay tribute to them and "put them in positions of power," he told CNN.
Moore painted 10 workers at Princeton, including people in facilities, dining, grounds maintenance and security. He focused on African-Americans as his subjects and says he was inspired by the plight of migrant black families who have struggled for job opportunities and equal pay. Growing up in Detroit, he remembers his own father working blue-collar jobs to provide for him.
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Good news from around the world
Here Are a Dozen Different Ways the World Has Rallied Behind Australia During the Bushfires
From the Good News Network:
With wildfires continuing to blaze throughout southern Australia, the situation may be dire—but in the wake of tragedy, there is always a slew of people, celebrities, religious groups, and organizations rallying to offer support.
This week, teams of Muslims from the Australian Islamic Center began cooking meals for exhausted firefighters across East Gippsland. The group also distributed several truckloads worth of food, emergency supplies, and resources across the region.
In the very same area, chefs from the Sikh Volunteers Australia set up their own mobile kitchen so they could feed firefighters and bushfire evacuees.
The article goes on to cite the U.S. and Canada sending firefighters, knitters around the world crafting healing clothing for burned animals, the family of Steve Irwin treating animals in their Queensland hospital, celebrities raising money, and the Australian P.M. (finally!!) pledging $2 billion AUD ($1.4 billion USD) to create a national recovery fund for those affected by the bush fires.
Touching on today’s theme of music being the antithesis of war, here’s an inspiring story from WWII:
Polish composer's lost wartime concerto brought to life
From The Guardian:
Ewa Wyszogrodzka is grateful for the unknown builders who, after discovering a suitcase in the garden of a destroyed house in Warsaw at the end of the second world war, handed it to authorities.
Its contents – pages of musical composition – were placed in the Polish national library for safekeeping, where they lay forgotten for years.
The manuscripts had been buried by Wyszogrodzka’s great-grandfather, the composer Ludomir Różycki, before he fled the war-torn city.
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Janusz Wawrowski, considered Poland’s leading classical violinist, spent about a decade reconstructing Różycki’s Violin Concerto – an exuberant, optimistic work comparable to that of George Gershwin or the film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, which was never performed in his lifetime…
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Piotr Urbański, a musicologist at Poznan University, said it was “rich, clear and brilliant, connecting us with a part of Polish history which was very tough (when it was under the occupation of Nazi Germany) but he used his music to encourage optimism, like a kind of therapy.”
How Lebanese Environmentalists Helped Spark Revolution
From the Sierra Club magazine, via Mother Jones:
Like youth activists around the world, Lebanese environmentalists are objecting to the status quo, which in Lebanon means protesting against rampant government corruption, a faltering economy, and a long list of environmental problems that dominate daily life. Hoping to capitalize on the current unrest, they are also working to set the country on a greener path.
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As the protest [against the corrupt government, which had failed to take action against wildfires] centralized around Martyr’s Square this past fall, Regenerate Lebanon set up an encampment there. It includes a kitchen that serves around 250 locally sourced meals daily without using any plastic (organizers rely instead on stainless steel kitchenware or the briq, a traditional Lebanese water jug). It has a maker space that boasts a living wall as well as a library and an area to collect donations like clothes and foodstuffs. Citizens can stop by a "cafe," where there is potable filtered water and solar-powered recharging stations. Kehdy sees the encampment as a micro-model that is already being replicated in some villages.
Young Lebanese activists have also joined together to clean up trash and recycle whatever they can.
“I used to think the problem was so big—waste, the water crisis,” said Joanne Hayek, a member of Regenerate Lebanon. “For me, the biggest change is that we realized in fact we all had the same dream of a clean Lebanon. That has aligned us.”
Vietnamese women strive to clear war-era mines
From Raw Story:
More than 6.1 million hectares of land in Vietnam remain blanketed by unexploded munitions — mainly dropped by US bombers — decades after the war ended in 1975.
Inching across a field littered with Vietnam war-era bombs, [Le Thi Bich] Ngoc leads an all-women demining team clearing unexploded ordnance that has killed tens of thousands of people — including her uncle.
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At least 40,000 Vietnamese have since died in related accidents. Victims are often farmers who accidentally trigger explosions, people salvaging scrap metal, or children who mistake bomblets for toys.
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For the past 20 years, Ngoc has worked as a deminer with Mines Advisory Group (MAG), funded by the United States, Britain and Japan.
Today the 42-year-old criss-crosses her home province to excavate up to a dozen pieces of unexploded ordnance daily — and she is not alone.
Deminer Tran Thi Hanh told AFP her husband was injured by a landmine blast while going to work, and she does not want the same thing to happen to others.
“This is what motivates me to do this job,” she said.
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Musical break
Dylan nails the hypocrisy of “Christian” war-mongering.
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Animal news
The Award for Best New Species of 2019: A Tiny Primate That Looks Like Baby Yoda
From Mother Jones:
Friends, we’ve found it. The most adorable—and therefore the best—new species of the year. It’s got bulging eyes, slender toes, and a tail twice the length of its minuscule body. If a chinchilla and a Furby had a baby, this is what it’d look like. But perhaps most importantly, the species bears a striking resemblance to Baby Yoda, the Mandalorian character that has rightfully won the internet over with its excruciating cuteness.
Journalists have for years compared tarsiers to the original Yoda; there’s even a rumor that the animals inspired the 1977 character. But the primate group, including the newly discovered species, probably has more in common with Baby Yoda. Take their eating habits for example: As fans of the show know, Baby Yoda eats frogs, while the tarsier—the only carnivorous primate—snacks on bugs and small reptiles it catches by leaping from tree to tree with its unexpectedly strong ankles and feet. And while tarsiers (as far as I know!) can’t use the Force, they can rotate their heads 180 degrees on both sides like an owl. This comes in handy because they can’t move their eyes in their sockets.
Girl Had Only Been Volunteering at Pet Shelter for Two Days When She Was Reunited With Lost Cat From Childhood
From Good News Network:
This 15-year-old girl had only been volunteering at her local animal shelter for a few days when she was suddenly reunited with her childhood cat named Spunky.
Hannah Rountree had not seen Spunky since he disappeared from her home in Roseburg, Oregon during a family vacation three years ago.
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Now 15 years old, Hannah started volunteering at the Saving Grace Pet Adoption center back in December. As fate would have it, it was only her second day on the job when she noticed a cat who looked shockingly like Spunky.
To her surprise, it was indeed her missing cat.
The feline had been found on the side of a highway back in September. After he was put up for adoption, he was taken home by a couple only to be brought back to the shelter a few weeks later because he didn’t want to catch mice.
Since Hannah brought him back home, she says he has quickly become comfortable with his old stomping grounds once more—although this time, she made sure to get him microchipped.
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A good laugh
The New York Times recently invited readers to “stretch the traditional boundaries of a letter to the editor, in verse, song or some other form.” These two offerings are especially wonderful:
A Few of His Favorite Things
(To the tune of “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music”)
Penthouses, power and plutocrat nations,
Rallies with cheering and standing ovations,
Big brassy buildings and homes fit for kings,
These are a few of his favorite things.
Girls in low necklines and eye-candy dresses,
Towering heels and long flowing tresses,
Diamonds that dazzle and clothing that clings,
These are a few of his favorite things.
When the press bites,
When The Times stings,
When he’s feeling mad,
He’ll simply remember his favorite things,
And then he won’t feel so bad.
Conflicts and chaos and selfish corruption.
Falsehoods and flare-ups, a Twitter eruption,
Favors for fawners that come with tight strings,
These are a few of his favorite things.
Putty for Russia and fodder for Turkey –
Links to their leaders are furtive and murky.
They may have sway in his policy swings –
Donald is one of their favorite things.
– Erika Fine, Brookline, MA
Mr. Tangerine Man
Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, tweet a tweet for me,
I’m not thinkin’ and there ain’t no facts I’m listenin’ to..
Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, tweet a tweet for me,
In your jingle jangle thinking, I’ll come followin’ you.
Take me for a trip upon your mad and racist ship
All your senses have been clipped
Tiny hands can’t seem to grip
And your foes too stunned to quip
Wait only for a tax cut to be squanderin’
You’re ready to say anything, you tariff all the trade,
On to your great parade
Cast your cultish spell my way
I promise to go under it.
Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, tweet a tweet for me,
I’m not thinking and it’s just Fox News I’m listenin’ to.
Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, tweet a tweet for me,
In your jingle jangle raving
I’ll be followin’ you.
Shel Khipple
Wilmette, Ill.
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A favorite photo
I get emails from Mother Jones, and one of their regular offerings is “Mother Jones Recharge” which features various good news stories each week. They ended their January 1st Recharge with this photo of a Ohia Lehua blossom, the first plant to grow after lava cools in Hawaii. I love the photo, and I love the symbolism, because like the photo of new growth in the charred Australian landscape, it shows rebirth after destruction, which I hope is what we will begin to see in our nation when Dems regain power in 2021.
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Hot lynx
www.rawstory.com/...The true meaning behind the lingo used by corporate Democrats [This is absolutely brilliant – read it!]
www.dailykos.com/… Chef José Andrés dispatches his relief team to assist in Australia wildfire recovery efforts
www.goodnewsnetwork.org/...Doing Something Nice For Others Can Immediately Relieve Sensations of Physical and Mental Pain, Says New Study
www.motherjones.com/… In Rural Colorado, the Kids of Coal Miners Learn to Install Solar Panels
www.positive.news/… What went right in 2019 [Good news from a UK perspective]
phys.org/...Plants can improve your work life
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Closing music
I’ve shared in previous GNRUs that during the darkest days of early 2017, when I was almost catatonic with shock and fear over tRump’s election, I listened to this song over and over. It never fails to re-ground me, to reassert my deepest beliefs, and to give me hope. Thank you, Leonard. You’re still speaking to us sweetly from your window in the Tower of Song.
This performance is from his concert in London in 2008. I had the unforgettable privilege of hearing him perform it live the following year.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Thanks for giving me the chance to sub for you, chloris, and thanks to each and every Gnusie for your smarts, your hearts, and your faithful attendance at our daily Gathering of the Herd.
❤️💙 RESIST, PERSIST, REBUILD, REJOICE!💙❤️