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| Please enjoy all this glorious and according to some ungodly pagan symbolism |
God has a weird sense of humor.
WA Council of the Blind convention.
RantWoman successfully traveled back and forth on public transit, across enormous boulevards, and through poorly lit parking lots 3 days in a row for something called Convention. Oh boy did we hit some "Thank God I do not feel alone" moments. One was about gender inclusive language from someone whose former state agency employer does an amazing job about such. This was counterposed by someone saying basically "I don't see any problem," that utterance of course being the first problem, never mind whether anyone who is metaphor-challenged gets upset about the wording.
Mention of Jesus is controversial when the desire was for a non-denominational inclusive invocation that might speak to Jews, muslims, and atheists as well as whoever else might be present. RantWoman is going to need to try again with one of the blind prayer warriors about all those times in the Gospels where Jesus does the same ministry on one page among Jews and on another page among people who are not Jews.
Jehovah's Witnesses DO NOT do Halloween.
RantWoman was asked and cajoled MS Word and the printer into delivering a printout from a website about such. RantWoman was not persuaded but considered it appropriate and doable to accomplish the request.
Viral--and blunt--candidate endorsement
The Denver Post endorses Lauren Boebert
Takeaways: does the reading public need a more specific enumeration of some of Rep. Boebert's more outrageous escapades? Is the understated version more than sufficient?
What will be the task of speaking about climate change and resource management after the election?
This race is one of several this year where RantWoman desperately hopes voters will save us all from having to invoke the 14th amendment against representatives who had unmistakable roles when a certain flock of "tourists" visited the nation's capital on January 6, 2021.
WA Senate race is allegedly a tossup or at least one pollster wants it to be so
RantWoman made it through the Entire Town Hall conversation between Sen. Patty Murray and soft MAGA Republican challenger Tiffany Smiley. By soft-MAGA, RantWoman means quite a bit of the most outspoken MAGA content was scrubbed from Mrs. Smiley's campaign website between the primary and the fall campaign season.
The town hall was still a bit of a trial. The two candidates were each asked a series of questions generated when KRO TV solicited suggestions from viewers and from a really interesting set of community groups. Questions hit: who won the 2020 election, climate change, inflation and gas prices, saving Medicare, funding for the war in Ukraine, abortion. RantWoman in general found Mrs. Smiley's answers vague; RantWoman is not even inspired to go look them up on Mrs. Mrs. Smiley's website. Sen. Murray presented 30 years of accomplishments to counter Smiley's claims that Sen. Murray has not fixed all the problems there are to fix over 30 years in office.
Mrs. Smiley is trained as a pediatric nurse. One of RantWoman's neighbors said "There's a nursing shortage. Why doesn't she go back to what she is trained to do.?" Curiously, despite Mrs. Smiley's 100% prolife position and promises of maternal support no other Republican ever mentions for mothers of infants and child care, nothing came up about working conditions and why nurses are fleeing the profession.
Instead, at EVERY campaign event Mrs. Smiley must tell her story about her husband being blinded by a car bomb while serving in Iraq and all her fights with the VA to get him real rehab so that he even returned to Active duty teaching at the Army War College. At the campaign's sole debate, this got mentioned in response to at least half the questions. In tonight's town hall, it got mentioned only twice, once at the beginning and once at the end. RantWoman is happy to acknowledge she is not necessarily doing well about sounding respectful: car bombs suck. Heroism is heroism. Rehabilitation is a tough road. And somehow the need to repeat the story rings to RantWoman a little like playing on the general public's fear of blindness.
Ironically, RantWoman knows a longtime nurse who also had to fight her organization to find a position after she experienced sudden vision loss. RantWoman also, this very weekend heard 3 speakers who experienced sudden traumatic vision loss. They all have spouses; none of their spouses felt any need to run for Senate because of the experience.
RantWoman is most able to say anything coherent about two exchanges, one about funding for the war in Ukraine, and one about student debt cancellation. Both candidates agree that funding for the war should not be cut. Sen. Murray spoke about wanting to review funding requests carefully and about working with allies. Mrs. Smiley had some very muddled comment about how things should never have been allowed to get as bad as they are. She repeated Trumpish talking points about alleged military weakness and the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan. She also said the US should stand with the women of Iran and get rid of the "nucular" deal. two minutes per side of course is not long enough to do anything but have one's head explode about military action and whether or not it defends women's rights. Also even though the prospects and achievable goals for diplomacy look pretty hopeless right now, the only thing that sticks in RantWoman's mind is maintenance of current funding levels for military aid.
Divergence of opinion about student debt cancellation was sort of predictable. Sen. Murry is all for it and wants Congress to work on ways to incentivize states to change funding and tuition practices to reduce the financial burden on students. Mrs. Smiley griped about plumbers and farmers and tradespeople having to help pay the costs of people going to college, which is not of course what the debt cancellation does. In particular while Mrs. Smile yammers about components of inflation that are global and that cannot be easily or quickly solved, student debt cancellation immediately push money in the hands of young people who are going to use it for all kinds of beneficial economic activity.
RantWoman does agree with Mrs. Smiley that people should also have lower barriers to getting non-college training in trades.
RantWoman does NOT, however, buy Mrs. Smiley's suggestion that military service is a great way to finance education. First there's that part about risk of getting blinded in a car bomb, poisoned by burn pit smoke, crippled by physical injury, or disabled by TBI and PTSD. Next there is the part about people with disabilities not getting to enlist even if they want to. RantWoman would STRONGLY prefer a wide range of inclusive and accessible safe work opportunities that do not rely on a poverty draft. In other words, Mrs. Smiley has not earned RantWoman's vote but RantWoman also has beefs with the whole situation no matter who is Senator.
And finally, a dare
The algorithmic gods of Twitter served up this Get out and VOTE sermon delivered by one of the founders of The Pursuit Church lately unfolding and famous for, among other things, Continuing to hold church in spite of COVID restrictions
But never mind all that. RantWoman challenges readers to listen to the WHOLE sermon. Can you find at least 5 things that resemble Quakers? Understand, there is also MUCH content that may make readers' heads explode. But just try it.
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