Loose Leaf Notes

1. Very cool! I was recently featured in a Life of a Poet interview at Poets United HERE. 

2. As Bernie and Hillary supporters who kept going back and forth on who we’d support, Joe and I ended up canceling out each other’s votes in Tuesday’s primary election, but somehow one of us voting for Hillary and the other for Bernie had some relief and some balance to it, sort of like ordering two restaurant meals that we both get to eat.

3. Trump came to Radford University on Monday, which is about 40 minutes from Floyd, and which made me ask my Facebook friends, “carpool to boo?”

4. “He’s the biggest face of modern American racism.  Silence is consent. We could not be silent with this coming to our campus.”  That was spoken by one of the protesters at the Trump Rally in Radford, where it was reported by The Roanoke Times that “throughout his speech, Trump was interrupted every few minutes by protesters in the crowd of about 4,000 to 5,000 who were quickly pointed out by others and removed. Prior to Trump taking the stage, a message was relayed to the crowd on loudspeakers, asking those in attendance to point out protesters by raising Trump signs and shouting: Trump, Trump, Trump.”  More HERE.

5. I want to know where the $60,000 that Academy Awards host Chris Rock raised selling Girl Scout Cookies at Sunday’s Oscars went.

6. I recently learned that the Beatles song Blackbird, which was sung by David Grohl at the Academy Awards Memoriam, was written by Paul McCarthy about the civil rights struggle and race riots in the U.S. during the ‘60s.

7. Last week Country Dew posted a Thirteen Thursday listing things hanging on her wall, so I looked up and saw:   A picture of John and Yoko at a bed-in and a Rolling Stones cover of the Dixie Chicks with words like Saddam’s Angels and Shut Up written on their naked bodies.

8.  “It’s been a lovely jigsaw puzzle of strong creative women,” said one of the attendees of Floyd’s Woman’s Winter Sojourn retreat, where Twenty-six women ranging in age from 17 to 70 came together to set their intentions for the New Year and to participate in a program that included guided meditations, ceremony, mapping life pathways, yoga, art, dance and more. – More HERE.

9. It all makes more sense since I learned that Trump has a pro-wrestling background, is big fan of the trumped up theatrical sport, has been inducted into World Wrestling Entertainment Celebrity Hall of Fame and has participated in Wrestle Mania shows.  Seems the reality show mogul has lifted some of those bully-wrestler tactics for his current political act.

10. Some recent Trump headlines: The Wreckoning, How the Billionaire Body-slammed GOP Politics, Trump Pinatas are a Hit, Live with Him or Die Trying to Stop Him, Trump Vows to Make the Galaxy Great Again, Lindsey Graham: Better for a Democrat to Win the Whitehouse, Mexican President: “I’m Not Going to Pay for that F**king Wall” and There Will Be Hell Toupee.

11. The Hairdo:  Donald Trump or Andy Warhol?

12. I take back #5, after learning last night that Joe changed his mind at the polls at the last moment.  Let’s just say Hillary won Virginia but Bernie won by a landslide in Floyd.

13. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.  – Leonardo DiCaprio, who spoke about climate change during his Academy Award acceptance speech for his role in ‘The Revenant,’ which he said the movie was about man’s relationship to the natural world.

________Thirteen Thursday