Pat Taub
Rashid Tlaib
Yesterday Rashida Tlaib, US Representative from Michigan, delivered a teary speech on the House floor, describing how she has been besieged with anti-Muslim hate mail and threats from her very first day in office. While she wasn’t at Congress during the January 6th coup, she felt traumatized by it, fearing she would have been a target had she been in her office. Tlaib ended her speech with the plea: “Don’t dehumanize what happened on January 6th . . . take it seriously.”
Rashid Tlaib being comforted by AOC as Talib broke down in tears during her speech
Covid Relief
Thankfully some good news from Washington: in the early hours of Friday morning the Democrats used the budget reconciliation process to pass Biden’s $1.9tn Covid relief package. People are hurting. They can’t receive aide soon enough.
VP Kamala Harris broke the 50-50 tie in the Senate to pass the Covid relief bill
Bernie Meme
The Bernie Inaugural meme of Bernie wearing his now infamous hand-knit mittens is popping up everywhere you look these days. My son, Jonathan, who lives in LA, sent me this photo where he’s standing in front of a Bernie meme.
Carey Mulligan
Recently I streamed the film, “Promising Young Woman,” starring Carey Mulligan, a brilliant actress, whose range is comparable to that of Meryl Streep. In her new film, Mulligan plays a med school drop out whose life was turned upside down when her best friend was raped. Consequently Mulligan’s character sets out on a revenge campaign against predatory men. “Promising Young Woman” had me glued to the screen from start to finish.
Carey Mulligan in “Promising Young Woman”
A New Mask
In this week’s mail I received a fabulous mask from Codepink, the women’s peace and justice group. I wore it yesterday when I went shopping at Trader Joe’s, but I forgot to wear it with a second mask, per the new Covid guidelines.
The Role of Books
In a recent New York Times interview with the science writer, Elizabeth Kolbert, she had this to say about books, “We ought to read books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it?” I like this way of thinking, but disagree in that I think there’s room for escape in the form of slap dash humor and the occasional trashy novel.
Elizabeth Kolbert
