The Benefits of The Plague….and Trump by Karen Tate

You might be asking yourself, “Is Karen losing her mind?” Last post she’s asking us “Are Your Shackles Showing?” as she writes this morbid and scary piece reminiscent of movies where someone is being held captive by a serial killer, and now this (I think most of you realized I was writing about being held captive by patriarchy and predator capitalism.), talking about the benefits of the Black Death – while we’re shuttered-in trying to dodge this virus.  And she sees a benefit of Trump?!

Stay with me here.  Let me explain. 

When the Orange Jumpsuit moved his clan of crooks and cronies into the White House I told my friends to take a deep breath and wait.  I could understand people gave him a shot because neither party, the Republicans nor the Corporate Democrats, were doing much for them.  Desperate voters turned a blind eye to what many of us could have predicted came along with Trump.  As scary as this man was and is, he was necessary.  He was the perfect and tactical move of Goddess or the Universe, who is sometimes about tough love and not just sweetness and light. Continue reading “The Benefits of The Plague….and Trump by Karen Tate”

The Time My Kids Broke Me Out of Jail by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

When I was a child, I liked and hated the game Monopoly. It was interesting and exciting, but it was also cutthroat, ruthless, competitive, and often seemed to involve cheating by the banker. My vague memories are mostly hurt feelings and distrust. So when my younger daughter Z pulled my ancient Monopoly set up from the basement and asked me to teach her how to play, I agreed with reluctance and trepidation.

My older daughter E noticed us playing after an hour or so and asked to join. Of course, E played at a significant disadvantage since she joined late. My trepidation increased. E was paying lots of rent but collecting hardly anything. The hurt feelings and distrust would erupt soon. I played grimly on, trying to act relaxed and cheerful as my dread mounted.

At one point, I couldn’t afford to pay rent to Z, so I mortgaged some properties. My daughters were horrified. “No, Mummy!” they kept repeating, “you don’t have to do that! We will give you some money!!” But, see, that’s not how The Game works, so I kept refusing their money. “It’ll be fine, honest!” I said, confused and unsure how to handle their anxious concern. I tried to be Nonanxious Presence Parent, modeling that I don’t mind losing The Game. They were equally confused. Why wouldn’t I accept their help? We played on. Continue reading “The Time My Kids Broke Me Out of Jail by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

When Life Hands You Lemons… by John Erickson

“When life hands you lemons, sometimes you have to make applesauce.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about something my grandmother would always tell me: “When life hands you lemons, sometimes you have to make applesauce.” I know, it sounds crazy, but life right now appears to be more on the crazy than the sane side.

We’re all in a state of uncertainty right now. The news is scary. Twitter is scary. Heck, even TikTok is losing parts of its humor. Everywhere we seem to turn, it’s more information about COVID-19, new cases, new lockdowns, and new things that we shouldn’t do for the foreseeable future. Continue reading “When Life Hands You Lemons… by John Erickson”

Matriarchal Politics by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Today’s blog is a sequel to: “Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis.”

On the basis of modern Matriarchal Studies, we can develop the vision of a new matriarchal, egalitarian form of society. This is called “Matriarchal Politics.”

The path to such a society has to combine matriarchal spirituality with politics, to create another kind of economy and another society. How this can be achieved is clearly portrayed by traditional matriarchal societies. Their economy, politics, social life and spirituality are inseparably connected: their goal is to provide a good life for all and this is assured through their structure and conventions.

Of course, we cannot go back and simply transfer historical patterns to the present.  It is unlikely that we will return to societies based on the blood-relatedness of clans or sole dependence on agriculture. History and its social development cannot be turned backwards. But for our own path into new matriarchal, egalitarian societies, we can gain much stimulation and great insights from patterns which have been tried and tested for millennia. Continue reading “Matriarchal Politics by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

Poem: In These United States is a Woman Electable? by Marie Cartier


In these United States we are wondering
if a woman is electable.
Is she likeable enough?

I donate to a woman candidate and I have put a sign
on my front lawn with a woman’s name on it.
I’m a woman. My wife is a woman.
Over half of my students are women. I teach over two hundred
students a semester. I see that women can.
We do and we can. But…

Can a woman lead? A headline asks.
Is she likeable enough to get elected? Another asks.
I was born from a woman.
All of us get here through the legs of a woman.
Women hold up half the sky. Continue reading “Poem: In These United States is a Woman Electable? by Marie Cartier”

Say it with Music by Esther Nelson

Daniel Deitrich, a worship leader in South Bend City Church, a “Jesus-centered community” in South Bend, Indiana, isn’t the first evangelical Christian to go up against fellow evangelical Christians who support the current U.S. president.  Perhaps, though, he’s the first to author a hymn as a scathing rebuke to those 81% of white evangelicals who voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election and those who continue to uphold him.

Here are the lyrics to Deitrich’s hymn: Continue reading “Say it with Music by Esther Nelson”

The Brass Tacks of the Trump Impeachment by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

AnjeanetteFrom the very moment after the dust settled from the 2016 elections, notions of impeachment started to break. Now three years into the Trump Presidency, impeachment proceedings have been launched. To start, Impeachment is a Constitutionally supported right. It is an element of the “Checks and Balances” system to ensure that no one branch of the government holds too much power. Instigating impeachment processes is not treason, nor is it unpatriotic – it is a testament to the democratic procedures established by the founding fathers and maintained for the last 230 years.

Continue reading “The Brass Tacks of the Trump Impeachment by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”

Metamorphosis and a Press Conference: A Kafkaesque and Shakespearean Fantasy about an Unreal Individual by Barbara Ardinger

Donald wakes up too early. Feeling confused and disoriented, he looks around the room. His bed has disappeared! He seems to be lying on the floor. Why? he asks himself, how’d I fall off my king-size bed? The floor (uncarpeted??) seems to go on around him forever, sans furniture, sans TVs, sans his solid gold toilet, sans even the doors and windows. It’s all a great big blank. All around him. Where am I? he asks himself.

He had disturbing dreams all night, and not just last night, but for…well, awhile. Since the subpoenas. He keeps seeing big, strong, silent men wearing jackets with initials on the back carrying big boxes out of his various offices. All of them. All over the world. In one repeating dream, a man dropped a box. It fell open, scattering papers filled with names and numbers. The men picked everything up, put the papers back in chronological order, and resealed the box. They kept carrying the boxes out to black vans that didn’t have names painted on them.

Continue reading “Metamorphosis and a Press Conference: A Kafkaesque and Shakespearean Fantasy about an Unreal Individual by Barbara Ardinger”

I’m That Trump Voter You Hate by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

There are people in my family who believe Christianity to be so inherently oppressive and harmful, that anyone who identifies as Christian is culpable for all of the harm done by all imperial colonization by Christian empires and nations, all harm done to Native Americans, to LGBTQ people, most slavery, racism, genocide, ecocide, and basically almost every problem the world has had for 2000 years.

Theirs is not an unusual view. I encounter this view regularly here in the Northeast US, though most people assign the blame to religion in general. For parts of my family, Christianity is the true evil because it was so popular, and thus the religion most commonly tied to violent and oppressive political leaders and structures.

I also encounter this attitude from feminists, quite frequently. According to many feminists, I am everything that is anti-feminist and misogynist… precisely, solely because I am Christian.

Continue reading “I’m That Trump Voter You Hate by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

#GunControlNow: While We Still Have Now by Marie Cartier

If you are somewhere:
a movie theater, festival, mosque,
temple or church, bar (especially a gay one although it could be any bar –cheers),
concert, elementary to college classroom, or any other public space in America…and
someone starts shooting,
shooting so fast the bullets spray like
a hose of water —
spray so fast you can’t know where to duck.
if you are somewhere and that happens…
Re-member yourself as a hero:
hide the children, if there are children
cover the babies, if there are babies
lock the doors, if there are doors.
Try to make it out alive.

Continue reading “#GunControlNow: While We Still Have Now by Marie Cartier”