A to Z 2026 Reflection

 I'm a little late on this reflection post but my hubby and I went on our first cruise to Alaska right after the A to Z ended so this is the first chance I've had to think about it. I missed the "official" reflection sign up but I'm going to do it anyway.

My theme for this year was the A to Z of Democracy and I used as a base the speech given by Representative Hakeem Jeffries at the opening of the 218 Congressional Session in 2021. As I usually do, here is a link to all of the posts for the challenge in case you missed any or want to re-read:

Z - Zealous Representation Over Zero Sum Confrontation

Y - Yes We Can Over You Can't Do It

X - Xenial Over Xenophobia

W - Working Families Over the Well Connected

V - Voting Rights Over Voter Suppression

U - Understanding Over Ugliness

T - Triumph Over Tyranny

S - Substance Over Slander

R - Reason Over Racism

Q - Quality of Life Over QAnon

P - People Over Politics

O - Opportunity Over Obstruction

N - Normalcy Over Negativity

M - Maturity Over Mar-A-Lago

L - Liberty Over Limitation

K - Knowledge Over Kangaroo Court

J - Justice Over Judicial Overreach

I - Inclusion Over Isolation

H - Hopefulness Over Hatred

G - Governing Over Gaslighting

F - Freedom Over Fascism

E - Economic Opportunity Over Extremism

D - Democracy Over Demogogue

C - Constitution Over Cult

B - Benevolence Over Bigotry

A - American Values Over Autocracy

Throughout the challenge I only had two negative commenters. One I sort of expected because I knew the way her feelings leaned from some of her past posts. The other kind of took me by surprise because she insinuated that I was attacking her specifically. My whole point of this project was not to attack anyone, merely to show the differences in thinking between Democrats and Republicans (some, not all) and to highlight specific goals that realistically we should have in common if we are genuinely concerned with our fellow humans and in keeping our constitution alive. There are times to have policy discussions but these things, to me, come down to whether we will be able to remain the United States of America or whether we will become a country with a name that starts with a "T" since he is so into naming everything after himself. Do I dislike the current administration? Intensely. Would I prefer not to engage in conversation with people who try to defend it? Absolutely. But I never meant to attack any one person for their beliefs. Also, even though I said at the top of each post that I would delete negative comments, I kept both of the ones that were left and replied as best I could.

A to Z is not easy to complete and it is definitely not easy to visit everyone on the challenge but I did my best and am grateful that I had as many followers as I did because knowing that there are others out there who think like me give me hope. Next year, if I do it, will probably be back to a lighter theme, especially if we can have a blue tsunami in November.

Stay tuned for a post about our first cruise! 

P is for People over Politics

My theme for this year's A to Z Challenge is the A to Z of Democracy. This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It's my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

People	Politics
Human beings Friends     Neighbors Kinship	Government     Policy     Political opinion     Affairs of state

Taking funding away from important programs like the Affordable Health Care Plan or Medicare so that the wealthy can have a huge tax break does not sound like putting people over politics. I understand that there are concerns about wasteful spending but to just arbitrarily defund programs doesn't make sense to me. Have you seen the depositions of those two guys who were working with DOGE? They were being asked about the cancellation of things because of "DEI" and they couldn't even articulate what DEI was! They used ChatGPT to help them identify programs to cut.  Another one was asked if he felt sorry for pulling the grants away from people who were doing important research. He said he did not feel sorry for them, he was trying to reduce the deficit. When asked if the deficit had been reduced, he said no. 

This is a clip from a news report: 

The smug look on their faces just tells it all. The full depositions I'm sure can be found on YouTube if you want to see them. 

Still a little under the weather so this is the best I can do for now.

As always, credit goes to Speaker Hakeem Jeffries who gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the House of Representatives at the beginning of the 218th congress.

Jubilant June

June 16 - 2016 Reading challenge

Book # 8 - A Thousand Days by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Definitely not breaking any speed reading records with this year's challenge.  Pretty sure I'm not going to make 52 books!

I did finish Zen Pencils 2 and it was pretty good.  I may look for the first one in the library because I think I could handle it in two weeks :)

On to Book 8:

This will fulfill my Political Memoir category.  It is over 1000 pages so I know it will take me some time but I have always loved stories about the Kennedy's and this seems to be written in a way that is not strictly about politics, but also about the human side.  At least the first few chapters have been easy reading so far.  Mr. Schlesinger was Special Assistant to the President so he was privy to a lot of the personal behind the scenes happenings in the Kennedy White House years.  Since this is an election year, reading about the steps leading up to electing the President is kind of interesting as well.

Wish me luck!