All It Takes Is A Little Love

I am going to be one hundred percent honest. I cannot understand why anyone would still be supporting Donald Trump or any of the Republicans who follow his lead regardless of how harmful to our nation his actions become. He promised not to engage our nation in a war and yet here we are entangled in a war of his choosing that seems to have no viable way out. That alone should make people question his abilities but there are still so many falling in line behind him.

I hear Trump accusing one Democrat after another of being a communist. Then he turns around and brokers a deal with Russia that will provide them with the funds that they desperately need to continue their war of aggression against Ukraine. I suspect that he hopes that none of us take note that Russia is a communist country. Then Trump has the gall to accuse Ukraine of creating the high prices of gasoline and diesel when that problem originated with the closing of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran after Trump attacked that nation. Even worse is that he is acting as though all of the trouble in the world is the fault of President Zelensky.

My question is why Trump is saving the communist nation of Russia while dismissing a country that is attempting to defend its sovereignty and democracy. Surely the United States of America should be on the side of the victim in this scenario, not a financially struggling dictatorship. I don’t care how high the price of fuel might go if making it lower involves abandoning an allied nation and the security of Europe itself.

Now I have learned that Trump is planning to meeting with Putin and Xi to broker a peace treaty with Ukraine. I note that Ukraine will not be invited to the meeting that will seemingly affect the freedom of their nation. How can the freedom loving MAGAs find anything fair about this tragic idea? Why are they afraid of phantom communists in the United States but not afraid of brokering the fate of Ukraine with two very communist countries?

It seems evident that Trump sees himself as part of a new world order in which Russia will control most of Europe, China will oversee Asia and he will be the leader of all of North and South America. It may sound enticing to Trump and his ego but it should frighten every single American and yet I still see his defenders acting as though voting for a Democrat anywhere in the United States will lead to turning our nation communist. Do such people actually understand what communism is and how dangerous turning on our allies will make our daily lives?

I certainly do not like the cost of living but I am bright enough to understand its present state has nothing to do with Joe Biden. President Biden has been gone for almost two years. His impact was taken over by Trump and the Musk DOGE boys many months ago. Those expensive groceries are all due to terrible decisions made by Trump and the Republicans. Any sensible voter would be against all of them.

I live in Texas that has been dominated by Republicans for three decades. Those leaders have threatened our public school system with their ridiculous voucher system. They have courted the tech boys in an effort to land contracts for data centers and other techie projects that are now threatening the environment in places that were already struggling with concerns about water. They have stood behind Trump while cattle ranchers have struggled to make ends meet. They have supported ICE and the random raids on immigrant workers leaving farmers without the workers that they need. They have sat back and allowed Trump’s cabinet members to slash the number of employees at NASA while awarding Musk with one private contract after another in spite of the fact that Musk rarely pays taxes and earns much of his wealth from government contracts. Why do the loyal Republican voters keep voting against themselves?

Americans everywhere need to wake up and understand that all of those scary things that Republicans are saying to keep voters in line are mostly not true. The crime rate of immigrants, even illegal ones, is lower than any other group of the population. Teachers are not convincing young people to become trans and definitely are not performing such changes during the school day. James Talarico is a good decent Christian man while Ken Paxton is a phony with a criminal history who parties with other criminals with in Saudi Arabia. Our governor is little more than a rubber stamp for Trump who was thrilled at landing so many data centers in Texas only to change his tune at the last minute when it seemed that Texans don’t like them so much. Gina Hinajosa has never had anything to do with raising porperty taxes. That is totally done on a local level. All the lies and lies and more lies showing up on Republican political ads and at Trump rallies demonstrate how little respect the candidates have for those who unquestioningly accept the attempts to scare them.

I hope that Americans realize their need to stop the MAGA movement and those who support it once and for all. It is a cancer on our Constitution continuing on its last breath with propaganda and lies. Our founders were not willing to put up with a king who no longer cared about their rights as humans. In 2026 no American should be willing to support the party that seems intent on destroying what those brave souls of long ago created. It’s time for all of us to use the right to vote out those who seem to think that they can lie and frighten us into keeping them in power. We know better and want to be better.

Being born just after the end of World War II made me acutely aware of the evils of Adolf Hitler and his associates. I heard stories from my mother and father. Later I would read about the horrors that the Nazi Party inflicted on the world. I suppose that reading The Diary of a Young Girl which was based on the musings of Anne Frank helped me to realize the utter depravity of the Third Reich.

Later I would also read Elie Wiesel’s vivid description of the Holocaust in Night. Reading about the horrors of the Hitler regime was gut wrenching. It was difficult to understand how so many people could be so evil. I soon enough realized that the spread of fear and propaganda along with promises of a better life for a certain group of German people had led to one of the darkest chapters in history.

I found myself searching for more and more information in my efforts to understand how any of this could have happened. I heard about descriptions of the perfect humans along with cataloging of those who were unfit. My visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. was gut wrenching, especially when the grandchildren who had accompanied me innocently asked me if they would have been in trouble if they had been born in Germany during that horrific time.

I remember explaining that I really did not know how any of us might have fared. I understood that the mental illness of my mother would have made our family suspect. I knew that my DNA suggested that I had descended from Eastern European Jews. I was not so sure that we would have passed or if the Nazis would have traced our backgrounds and sent us all to the concentration camps.

My grandchildren were particularly concerned about how Hitler and his associates had manipulated the German people into being fearful of certain groups of people with a particular emphasis on Jews. I knew that people who were thought to be defective in any way were also targeted. Even gypsies better known as Roma we often sent to the camps. Hitler controlled his nation with an iron fist and justified his actions with a constant barrage of fear.

I have been watching Donald Trump very closely from the time he first ran for president. It bothered me that he so often used similar tactics to rally his supporters. He made people afraid of immigrants by calling them criminals, drug dealers and rapists. Such generalizations really got me thinking and I saw through his propaganda. He also smeared all Muslims as though every single one of them was a terrorist. He repeated his diatribes so often that many Americans began to repeat his estimation of whole swaths of people.

During Trump’s return to the Oval office he has ratcheted up his campaign of fear to include transgender individuals. He uses this very small and mostly peaceful group to enrage his MAGA followers. He makes transgender women appear to be monsters intent on hurting young women. He uses the same kind of fear tactics that Hitler used to divide a nation. In the process life for those who are transgender has turned into a nightmare that need not exist. They are no more a dangerous threat to our nation than the immigrants who labor in low end jobs are. He uses human beings to boost his popularity with a cruelty that his followers applaud.

It sickens me when I see our president constantly calling Democrats communists. He is blithely inciting brutality and smiling when he sees it happening. His minions cheer when a protester at one of his rallies is attacked. He constantly portrays himself as a savior while smearing anyone who disagrees with him. He calls women pigs and pardons right wing groups who illegally stormed Congress in an attempt to undo the results of an election. He accomplishes his goals by constantly reminding Americans that horrible people exist in our midst. The problem is that his hyperbole seems to include anyone who does not think and vote the way he wants them to do. He sues independent influencers for bringing his faults to light. He spreads fear in terrifying ways that look way too much like the methods of fanatical despots. He keeps his following in line with lies and fear. Trump has not made us great again. Instead he has revealed a dark side of humanity that is becoming more and more dangerous to all of us. Surely this is truth is something that all moral people can see.

During the early days of the worldwide Covid epidemic I became close friends with a woman who had attended my high school who was a year behind me. I had known of her because she was an outstanding debater and speaker who constantly won prizes at competitive tournaments. She also managed to outsell everyone in the school during our yearly fundraising efforts that involved peddling World’s Finest Chocolate. Back then I admired her persuasive abilities but never had the opportunity to get to know her better.

Then came Covid and with it a rather chaotic and uncertain episode for our nation. I spent more and more time checking on people that I knew on Facebook and writing blogs. Along the way I found Bren Ortega Murphy and recognized her as the girl I had noticed in the long ago. We began exchanging comments and posts and messages and then one day she asked for my phone number and wondered if she might call me to converse.

I was incredibly excited that she had thought of doing this and so I typed out my phone number immediately and told her that I was ready for her call anytime she wanted to reach out. A few minutes later the phone rang and we talked for well over an hour. I learned that she had gone to Chicago after high school graduation to attend Northwestern University where she earned her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.. By the time that I connected with her she was a renowned professor in the Department of Communications and Women’s Studies at Loyola University in Chicago. She had stayed in Chicago for the entirety of her adult life, marrying and living in Evanston where she delightfully decorated her home for every occasion.

Dr. Bren Ortega Murphy influenced me from the start. She sent me cards and magazines and before long had me reading The New York Times and subscribing to The New Yorker and The Atlantic. We would discuss certain articles that had captured her attention and she would guide me to a higher level of thinking than I had enjoyed since I sat with my mother-in-law sipping tea after Sunday dinners.

Bren described a documentary that she had written, produced and directed called A Question of Habit: The Image of Women Religious In U.S. Popular Culture. She wondered if I had ever heard of it or seen it. I had to confess that I was totally ignorant of it. She suggested that I might enjoy viewing it as it traced the often stereotyping of religious women, particularly those who were nuns. In the film Bren contrasted the tropes of nuns versus the important history of their contributions in the United States. It outlined the incredible work of women like Mother Frances Cabrini and Sister Helen Prejean.

Of course I immediately searched for the documentary and was amazed at how easy it was to find. The film was narrated by Susan Sarandon and it focused on the impact of nuns whose work all too often went unnoticed. Among the women that she chose to feature was Mother Cabrini whom I knew of because I had worked for a time as a director of religious education at St.Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Houston. I was stunned to learn of the grit, intelligence and managerial genius of Mother Cabrini as she worked with immigrants in both New York City and Chicago where shhe built schools and hospitals that served Italian children in particular.

I found myself being impressed with the genius of both Bree and that of Mother Cabrini. I realized that even I had tended to view Mother Cabrini as a kind of saintly woman quietly ministering the poor. I had never realized the depth of the work that she had done. My admiration for her soared and I immediately gushed with enthusiasm as I related my feelings to Bree.

I never got to visit Bree in Chicago. We had agreed that I would travel to see her when the pandemic was over. Suddenly a post appeared on her Facebook page announcing that she had died. I was stunned and heartbroken and have never quite adjusted to the fact that she is gone.

What made me happy was later learning that the citizens of Little Italy in Chicago had taken down a statue of Christopher Columbus and had voted to erect a statue of Mother Cabrini instead. I imagined Bren beaming from ear to ear at the news. I knew that somehow the message of her life’s work and her documentary had indeed impacted people in the same ways that they had impacted me. It was as though two very great women had somehow been recognized.

The stories of Dr. Bren Ortega Murphy and and St. Frances Cabrini are parallel. Both women overcame the challenges that women still endure and rose to the heights of their potential. They impacted so many souls along the way and I quite humbly became one of their fans.

I suppose that I have been a stoic for most of my life. As a child who lost her father at the age of eight I am certain that I struggled for many years before finally coming to grips with what had happened. I threw myself into studying and following a schedule that kept my mind busy from the time I woke each morning until I fell into bed at night. It was a routine that I tended to follow for most of my life whenever troubles or losses occurred. 

Life is filled with difficulties. Nobody is immune to them. I felt that I had conquered the fears and feelings that seem to appear during difficult moments. I was able to find ways of coping with even the most distressing challenges that came my way even as those who knew me well often counseled me to take a break from being the strong person in the room. 

In May of 2011, my mother died the day after I officially retired from teaching in Texas public schools. I knew that she had cancer and that tough days were ahead but it had never dawned on me that she would leave this earth so quickly after the diagnosis that had led me to leave the work that was so entangled with my ability to manage my own emotions.

The years following my mother’s death were riddled with one challenge after another that I somehow overcame again and again. I expressed my bereavement in the face of losing her by writing a book that told her story. it is finished but somehow I have never quite figured out how to publish it for the public. In many ways writing it was the therapy that I used to express the deep feelings roiling inside of me.

So much more happened between 2011 and the present. There were many more deaths of people who played an intricate role in my story. I have the scars on my heart from the loss of them but also treasure the impact that they had in making me the person that I am today. I used tutoring and teaching homeschooled children to ease the sorrow that I felt with each loss of the world that I had always known. 

The roll call of friends and relatives leaving this earth has continued unabated. In the meantime life kept throwing curveballs my way. I knew with each occurrence that I was no more and no less impacted by such things than every other person that I know. We all have to face difficulties and for some they are even worse than anything that I have ever had to endure. I kept myself busy doing whatever needed to be done with a determined stoicism. With my inner strength I got through a devastating flood in my city, two heart surgeries performed on my husband, my own injuries and surgeries, the Covid pandemic that left me isolated and worried, the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease with both of my brothers, and eventually a five year project of caring for my aging father-in-law.

I thought that I was tough enough to keep it all together no matter what happened and for the most part I was right. Then my father-in-law died. I had to cancel my tutoring and teaching sessions to make arrangements for his funeral and burial. I told myself that I was ready for his passing because he had been severely ill for ten months. He was suffering and I did not want that for him so I truly believed that I would be ready to carry on without interruption as soon as the formalities of his dying were over. 

A sweet and wise man whose daughter I tutor suggested to me that I take time to find grace before  returning to work. He insisted on giving me extra time off. I assured him that if he changed his mind I would be ready because for the seventy years after my father’s death I have always been ready. It surprised me to know that he was right and I was wrong.

On the afternoon of the burial ceremony my husband and I came home and I felt weary. I decided to give myself the gift of doing nothing for the rest of the day. By the afternoon I needed to nap, something that I rarely do. I fell asleep quickly and somehow during that time the last fifteen years streamed through my mind like a movie. I relived every challenging moment and realized that I had stifled my feelings far too long. Tears came and with them the understanding that the grace that I needed was to admit to my own humanity and acknowledge that each of the stresses had taken something important out of me. I felt a relief in being truthful with myself in a way that I had attempted to cover in the past.

I spent the evening grieving not just for my father-in-law but for all of the people that I had lost or watched as they dealt with horrific situations. I understood the human need to process sorrow and finally indulged in allowing myself to feel weak and exhausted.

We all need moments to find the grace to admit to being frail and uncertain about the slings and arrows that overtake each and every one of us. There is a time for being brave and a time for admitting how broken we may feel. Grace helps us to begin the process of healing. 

I suspect that I will be forever grateful to that man who seemed to understand what I would need after my most recent loss. I want to share his wisdom to everyone that I know. As we walk through life there will be an ebb and flow of good and bad times. We don’t always have to be in control of our feelings. Sometimes the very best thing we might do is to let our emotions guide us through the perils of life. Stoicism only delays the inevitable. Sooner or later we have to be honest with ourselves. Life can be trying and each challenge or loss deserves the grace to endure it properly. 

I live in a smart home. It is not something that I would have done on my own but it is in keeping with my husband’s fascination with technology. In the long ago he proudly came home with a Radio Shack computer that did very little other than providing him with some silly games. Nonetheless he insisted that such machines would change our world and in that regard he was so right.

Eventually he upgraded to an Apple computer with two disc drives. He used that machine to create a gradebook for me that made my old paper one obsolete. He tied it to a weekly letter that I sent home to each parent outlining the up to date status of each student that even included a listing of missing assignments. It was revolutionary for the time and I had to get permission from the principal to use it.

Computers made my world so much nicer. I sailed through a Master’s degree using the Internet and writing papers with ease. I was able to communicate with my professors’ and they with me. I found myself wondering how we humans had been able to operate without the amazing machines that only seemed to get better and better over time. 

I now drive a hybrid plug in car. Most of the time I am able to complete my errands without using a drop of gasoline. For longer trips the car uses the charged battery before kicking into gasoline mode. I am averaging eighty miles per gallon of gas. Even better are the features that use cameras and radar to keep me aware of the traffic all around me. It is an amazing work of engineering that makes me feel quite comfortable as I drive from one place to another.

I have a robot that vacuums the rooms in my home. I can request music to be played instantly wherever I am inside the house. Lights go on and off at certain times of day. A timer waters my lawn even when I am away from home. All of these features have made life easier for me so that I have more time to read and write my blogs.

I sometimes imagine a time when elderly people will be able to live longer inside their homes with the aid of robotics and computer programming. Such ideas are exciting but the rush to artificial intelligence has me concerned. Perhaps the anxiety that I feel stems from the dystopian novels I have read in which humans are made slaves of a single way of thinking and living. 

I watched an interview with twenty eight year old man who has been working on artificial intelligence since his early twenties. He is quite obviously a very bright individual and he seems to believe that artificial intelligence will revolutionize how we behave and live as humans. He notes that there have been dramatic changes over time and AI is just one more shift.

I know that we humans began as hunters and gatherers moving from place to place. Eventually we settled down to plant crops and domesticate animals. People learned how to provide trades and societies thrived. Then came the Industrial Revolution when we began to use of machines run by humans. From the end of the nineteenth century into the present time the inventions and innovations came more and more rapidly until we in many ways became one world communicating instantly with each other. 

The new question is what the purpose of AI will ultimately be. The young man that I saw in that interview describes a kind of utopian world in which the computers are doing all of the work and the people of the world are provided with universal incomes and healthcare and housing. The machines and their makers will be theoretically making life better for everyone. Of course those modern day inventors will become wealthy in the process and will also determine how to delineate the information and the support for the rest of mankind. Work will no longer provide meaning for individuals. The machines will work for us and dole out our safety and security.

Such an idea is frightening to me. While we humans have a history of fighting for power and security, we also demonstrate over and over the glorious ascent of our humanity. The very idea that equalizing everything for people without their efforts or consent is not tempting. I find myself wondering whose version of utopia will win the race and force us to live in ways that do not work given the incredible diversity of humans. What differentiates us from animals is our creativity, our ability to think. There can never be a one size fits all way of doing things. It is anathema to our very instincts. 

Right now people are mainly complaining about the horrific misuse of land for data centers. They are loud and lit up twenty four hours a day. They gobble up resources like water and electricity. Once they are built the jobs that they create are minimal and worse than any of these things is the fact that they threaten to take aways jobs from humans.

Who wants a machine teaching our children? Who thinks that replacing counselors with programming is a good idea? Who actually wants to surrender to machines and societies that treat us like pets rather than the glorious and mindful individuals that we are? 

I may be simplifying the promises of AI but right now I see it as a vehicle for enriching the already rich while quietly overtaking the work of humans. I believe that we need to slow down and determine exactly what to expect from the current rush to be first in the world to create this brave new world. If we do not do this properly we may find ourselves in a new kind of hell.