The Little Words Mean the Most

Reply to a congressional candidate seeking to pick my pocket

First: My name's not THOMAS. It's TOM.

I would never give a penny to any fundraising robot that doesn't get that right. And you can thank ActBlue for that persistent mistake. They go by my credit card name, not my common name. And never asked my preference.

I can't vote in the first district, anyway; so I'm really not your target audience. I have, however, given serious money to candidate Aaron, because I like a flaming progressive; I think he has fire power. Spoken with candidate Sabina, too; be happy with her. There are what? 33 other candidates as well? Oh, my.

And Walter, who are you again? I know what you're not (your paragraph 4).

How was the opening rate on your subject line? Not exactly a barn burner declaration.

And starting with a statistic in your email is how you lose the "3-second test." (I can explain; it comes from neuroscience.)

All this must sound like criticism. Honestly, may the best candidate win. David C. did RI proud, especially during the worst of the Trump years. Little Rhody can punch well above its weight ... with the right people in office (Whitehouse, Jack Reed).

And, yes, I know no one's listening. Hi, robot!

~ tom (not thomas)

 

 

If you can spread this sad/hopeful tale, then thank you....

 

[above, live from Kyiv]

I'm trying to help pitch an urgent story about Ukrainian kids diagnosed with cancer who are still in-country. But don't know anyone in the media...

Story points:
1. Ukrainian kids diagnosed with pediatric cancer. Recovery rate can be 80+% with the right, advanced care.
2. Same kids, served by a gov't-managed health-care system that's less than perfect ... and distracted by Putin's war. Often, expensive medicines and other cancer treatments come out of parents' pockets. Those same pockets are mostly not deep. A charity named Tabletochki ("little pill"), established more than a decade ago, covers the costs through fundraising. They are "amazing," according to a top Canadian consultant who worked closely with them for several years. I've had a Zoom with them this past week (volunteered to help with their case development). It was an inspiring, wonderful, joyful meeting (except maybe for the part where I realized they speak and write better colloquial English than I do).
3. Tabletochki enjoyed heavy support from average Ukrainians; their compassionate gifts annually covered 90% of the treatment costs.
4. Then Putin invaded.
5. Then pretty quickly 16 million+ Ukrainians hit the road or the trenches. Tabletochki's reliable donor base disappeared, the biggest European refugee crisis since World War 2. Donors turned into refugees living from suitcases.
6. The Tabletochki foundation still ensures first-world cancer treatment for Ukrainian cancer kids (they're involved with 600+ families right now) ... but there's a hole in the charity's annual budget, thanks to Putin's war. This year, Tabletochki needs to go global ... at least until Putin's atrocity ends. The goal isn't all that high, as campaigns go: about $2 million in outside compassion to cover the country's pediatric cancer-care costs through the next 12 months should do the trick.

Advice, my friends?

And thank you ... your noodling helps!!! They're working on their plan. And, as I said before, they are "amazing."

 

Talking to friends ... maybe U entrepreneurs

yes U below come on

                                                                                                                                                                                              

this is how successfull

 

thank you foot

 

on flip

 

U see yourself in whatever frame

 

-----

 

been listening to the Jimmy Carter tributes

 

One insider camp called him "the meanist person I've ever met" ~ bcuz he wanted to get certain things done FAST

 

I have confirmation from a top-diplomat friend, who guided Jimmy in his post-presidency years around Nigeria: brilliant, impatient, a prick, clear-sighted; essential virtues NOT highly prized at that time, any time, in those armored limousines stuck in traffic

 

where are U, am I, on that spectrum? get more done? get people to like me?

 

 

Post US midterm election day: IMO

To quote Aaron Blake, columnist in The Washington Post (thank you, Jeff B.):

Should Republicans fail to pick up one seat in the Senate (the gain they need to flip it), it would be just the seventh time the opposition party has failed to do so in a midterm over the past 100 years. And the average gain for the opposition party in House races over the past 100 years is 29 seats, which Republicans won’t match.

Analyst Blake is talking about a CENTURY of precedent. This was a hundred-year political storm. Not because the Dems were so right ... but because, IMO, the GOP Trumpstarts were so wrong.

In other words (one more IMO): this was NOT a referendum on the White House, the party in power, the sloshing economy. This, IMO, was a referendum on the crazy shit ... and Republican extremist-manipulators were told NO! Go back to your caves.

You can't govern 330 million people without intense respect for diversity and change and compromise. Not true: maybe you CAN govern VAST #s ... if you're a totalitarian regime. I've consulted since with a couple of successful international political operatives. They agreed: about 35% of the voting populace always PREFERs an authoritarian, dictatorial, beggar-off Jews. Hitting back???<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>?;

8-ummm or less????

[translated into Icelandish] judt er=tell me ehrtr to csrtpkeom or dohot, sf err y=to bury my fhifrem.

Well, we'll see.

 

On US election day, Nov. 8, 2022, a dear friend...

 

... who's voted for Donald Trump twice

... will drive us both to Foster RI's local polling station

... and we will vote: dutifully, faithfully, our best; marking our secret ballots

... opposite ends, for adequate reasons

... and go hiking again next week together

... with deep respect & love, whatever happens

 

Women4Change Indiana sent me this T

Humane Martha's Vineyard responds to FL guv who inhumanely flew immigrants to this sandy island

Thank you, Roger C.

One of the worst arguments I've seen

How's your email feed?

Mine feels like an untreatable mental hemorroid, whipped to a fury by idiots.

Got this e-message today: "Biden is likely to cancel student debt, but there’s a catch."

OK! Ready!

Whom should I hate? The REAL assholes? Or my very-own party's assholes ...and their bleeding hemorroids. Apparently I should hate Biden, according to screamers trying to raise money. (I don't disagree. America's 2-party system now seems like a yard sale.)

This incoming email's offensive bottom-line: Shun our own! You're not nearly pure enough.

Untrustworthy liberals cling to power. By the way: ignore those shiny, scrubbed new boats in the harbor. Quaint vessels, sturdy? Late-breaking news: the Puritans have landed again. Sigh.

You want to be perfect?

You want to be useful?

 

I vote useful.

Exactly one thing matters this November 2022: How many of you self-identified Americans will vote?

 

The numbers matter.

Either side? Doesn't matter. Raw numbers matter.

The better the turn out, the fairer the 2022 elections.

 

I’m at my lonely mailbox

I lift out today’s incoming small pile. Expectations are low. Bills … the rest.

Most attempt to hijack my attention. Discarded without a second thought, not even a smile. A tired smirk. "Nice try." Predictable. How stupid do you think I am? (VERY, obviously.) Carelessly arrogant, too (not me; you).

YET one thing in YOUR appeal, just today, has caught my eye.

One thing you've said hooks an exposed, not-too-cautious corner of my heart?... and leads me maybe maybe maybe to YES?

[working on a new show]

 

Sim One got it absolutely right. Me? Absolutely wrong...

 

[June 24, 2022] This morning's lead headline in the Boston Globe:

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, allowing states to ban abortions

Simone -- who served with distinction as the board chair for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England; who founded the Women's Fund of RI, a political advocacy effort -- often predicted today's headline.

She was convinced this day would come.

She knew in her guts that the fight for women's bodily rights wasn't over.  I'd try to reassure her. Because I didn't feel the issue the way she felt the issue. I was a blithe optimist, doing that manly rational thing. She was a skeptic.

I didn't see how a hard-won freedom that had been around for nearly 50 years could be yanked away ... in a nation of 330 million ... by 5 justices, 4 of them men, 3 of them Trump appointees ... during a time when a heavy majority of Americans (61%; 201 million) said they "support abortion rights," including a third of Republicans.

 

I was wrong. I'm talking to you, Sim One, up in your Existentialist heaven: I was dead wrong and you were SO right.

 

And now the fight for a woman's right to own her body begins again.

 

You know what would solve the problem for ALL TIME? For boys entering puberty to have forced (but reversible) vasectomies. They can still ejaculate. They just can't impregnate ... until some day when maybe they want kids.

 

Planned Parenthood is called that for a reason. Because UNPLANNED parenthood ... toss the dice.