Ed McGinty is a rare protester in the Trump stronghold of The Villages. “When Trump won, it changed the whole ballgame for me,” McGinty says. “I thought to myself, ‘This was supposed to be a joke. What’s wrong with these people?”
For most of his life, Ed McGinty kept his political beliefs to himself.
Raised Irish Catholic in Philadelphia, the 71-year-old retired real estate broker has always been a Democrat, just like his parents before him. But the last time he remembers being especially politically motivated was when Hubert Humphrey ran against Richard Nixon in 1968. After that, he’d wake up the morning after Election Day, find out George W. Bush or another Republican had won and say, “Okay, well, back to work.”
Then Donald Trump was elected.
“When Trump won, it changed the whole ballgame for me,” McGinty told The Washington Post. “I thought to myself, ‘This was supposed to be a joke. What’s wrong with these people?’ ”
In the three years since then, the once-quiet political observer has transformed into the best-known Trump protester in The Villages, a sprawling, meticulously planned and maintained retirement community that lies about 45 miles northwest of Orlando. McGinty’s daily vigil with signs blasting the president as a “SEXUAL PREDATOR” (among other things) has drawn ire in the Trump-loving Florida town he has called home since 2016. It has also brought viral fame.
Ed Note: A common fear in aging is the onset of dementia–something not unfamiliar to all of us. Should we all have a dementia directive–the answer in my opinion is “yes.” But will it be honored–the answer is “it depends.” The ethics in this new area of discussion will be touched upon in a talk at Skyline coming up on Tuesday February 18th from 2-3:30 PM titled “Our Lives Our Choices.”
By JoNel Aleccia
Thanks to Allan A. for sending this in.
When she worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, long before cellphone calculators, Susan Saran could perform complex math problems in her head. Years later, as one of its top regulators, she was in charge of investigating insider trading deals.
Today, she struggles to remember multiplication tables.
Seven years ago, at age 57, Saran was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a progressive, fatal brain disease. She had started forgetting things, losing focus at the job she had held for three decades. Then tests revealed the grim diagnosis.
“It was absolutely devastating,” Saran, 64, said. “It changed everything. My job ended. I was put out on disability. I was told to establish myself in an [extended] community before I was unable to care for myself.”
So Saran uprooted herself. She sold her home in 2015 and found a bucolic retirement community in rural New York whose website promised “comprehensive health care for life.”
And now, she is fighting with that community over her right to determine how she will die — even though she has made her wishes known in writing. Similar fights could ensnare millions of Americans with dementia and similar end-of-life directives in coming years.
(CNN)The natural world never fails to surprise us, and this moving encounter between an orangutan and a man in Borneo has melted hearts all over the world.Amateur photographer Anil Prabhakar captured the fleeting moment, in which one of the Indonesian island’s critically endangered apes stretched out its hand to help a man out of snake-infested water.
Prabhakar was on a safari with friends at a conservation forest run by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation(BOS) when he witnessed the scene.He told CNN: “There was a report of snakes in that area so the warden came over and he’s clearing snakes.
Ed note: We see a lot of “non-apology apologies” in the media and may have been involved some half-baked efforts ourselves. Let’s face it. It’s hard to admit fault! Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin had it right, “It’s sad, so sad. Why can’t we talk it over? Oh, it seems to me that sorry seems to be the hardest word.”
A bit of quick research defines a true apology as follows:
These are the elements of a good apology:
Say I’m sorry, not I’m sorry but …
Face to face is best, phone next best–email/text the worst
Own up to the mistake – the person must know you are accepting responsibility for your hurtful action
Describe what happened. This in itself may help clarify any misunderstanding
Outline a plan to help make things better
Admit you were wrong
Humbly ask for forgiveness
Things to avoid in an apology:
Justifying your action
Saying “I’m sorry you were hurt by my words/actions” but not admitting they were wrong
Pushing back on the feelings of the other person – their truth is theirs, yours is yours
Going off point and talking about other things
It was refreshing to read about Alaska Airline’s apology, albeit it 20 years overdue, for loss of lives in a crash in flight 261. Alaska admirably admitted its errors to the families and publically humbly apologized. Click here for the article.
Posted inEssays|Comments Off on What’s a true apology?
Please join us for a Common Ground for Action (CGA) online deliberative forum on Saturday February 8th at 2pm ET/11am PT to discuss “Health Care: How Can We Bring Costs Down While Getting the Care We Need?”
During our deliberation, we’ll be talking about how to fix our We’ll be talking about actions and drawbacks to reducing health care costs by three different options: (1) Ensuring health care for all: All Americans deserve health care, so let’s cover everybody, but doing so would eliminate private insurance
(2) Build on what we have: Improve the mix of public and private options by revising the ACA, but doing so keeps private insurance in place and wastes billions of dollars on advertising and paperwork
(3) Let people make their own choices: Reduce government involvement in health care by allowing stripped down insurance or no coverage, but doing could lead to everyone paying more and people receiving sub-par care.
If you’ve never participated in a CGA forum, please watch the “How To Participate” video before joining. You can find the video link here https://vimeo.com/findcommonground
I have finished my library copy of The Power and the Glory which is the book club selection for Monday night’s discussion. If you would like to read it this weekend, call me: Sue VanLeuven – 1503 or 206-407-1923
From FHIA: Join the First Hill Improvement
Association and your neighbors at the Frye Art Museum (Terry
& Cherry) at 5:30pm on Thursday, February 13th for the
first of three community visioning events to share ideas and priorities for the
future of our neighborhood greenway. Free
and open to the public. You can free and open to the public. You can RSVP to the event on Eventbrite
Information available
Barb
Williams has put a few copies of LifeLine, the newslatter of the
National Continuing Care Residents Association (NaCCRA) in the WaCCRA box on
the shelf at the east end of the Skybox room on the 4th floor. The
newsletter contains news and commentary and descriptions of other CCRCs across
the country.
KP Sr Caucus tomorrow
A ride to the
Kaiser-Permanente “Senior Caucus” will be leaving from the circular drive on 5
at 9:30 Friday morning. There will be
room for four residents. If you would
like to be part of the group, just come down to the lobby a little early
(first-come, first-served). The topic
this month is an overview of the newly formed Group Health Washington
Foundation. Put Barber has organized
this expedition and will be going.
Follow up
The request for loan of a pasta-maker worked. And pasta has been made!
About this blog post
The
goal for Skyline.Notices is to increase connections among people who live at
Skyline in whatever ways make sense. Announcements of all sorts that fit that
goal are welcome.
Put
Barber will compile any announcements sent to skyline.notices@gmail.com into a
list, which will then be posted to “Skyline 725 Happenings”
(https://www.skyline725.com/) early Thursday morning. Please include your
contact information in your message and, if f you prefer to be contacted in
some way (text, email, phone) or at a specific time, please include your
preference as well.
Please
send anything you would like to suggest to be included before 5 pm on
Wednesdays to skyline.notices@gmail.com.
Join
the First Hill Improvement Association and your neighbors at the Frye Art Museum (Terry & Cherry) at 5:30pm on Thursday, February 13th
for the first of three community visioning events to share ideas and priorities
for the future of our neighborhood greenway.
The goal is to come together as a community to develop a vision and concept
design to re-imagine and activate the public realm in our
neighborhood.
Our design team at Berger Partnership will facilitate the
event. The meeting is free and open to the public. Your voice is critical
to developing the best possible plan, so bring a neighbor and come by for as
long as you can! You can RSVP to the event on Eventbrite or Facebook.
Posted inIn the Neighborhood|Comments Off on Help guide the future of Terry Avenue!
Hey guys, we desperately need a few more men to join us on Friday mornings at 8:45 AM for a half-hour of circuit training. It’s only as vigorous as your fitness allows. Seroj does a great job leading us, but unless we get more attendance it might be canceled! Come and join us – Jim D, Rick B, Steve L and Dick P are regulars.
Thanks Barb W for letting us know about this event
Thursday,
February 6, 2020, 5-7 p.m.
ARTS at King Street Station
303 S. Jackson St, Top Floor, Seattle, WA 98104
Please
join us for the opening reception for The
American War, an exhibition by artists Pao Houa Her and Sadie
Wechsler featuring photography and video exploring the legacy and lasting
global impacts of the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia and the United States.
ARTS at
King Street Station is a new kind of cultural space where communities of
color have increased opportunities to present their work and be seen and
heard. Grounded in community feedback, the programming and cultural space on
the third floor of King Street Station is an incubator for artists and communities,
experimenting with the best ways to respond to the cultural needs of an
ever-changing city.
Posted inArt, War|Comments Off on The American War
Do you have a favorite palindrome such as “A man a plan a canal Panama?” Actually yesterday’s date was a palindrome without even trying: it was 02-02-2020. We won’t get to see one like it until 03-03-3030!
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Yesterday was a palindrome!
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