Dear Readers,

You all know me or have read my blog posts enough to feel like you do. I’m level-headed and quiet, and I rarely let my emotions get the best of me. I like to keep my posts light, with politics usually playing only a tangential role. While I don’t hide my liberal leanings, I won’t hit you over the head with them every time I post.

This morning, however, I feel like letting loose. I read something in The New York Times that made me pop my cork. An opinion piece by Brooke Harrington, a professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth, laid out a compelling case against Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE. It was a well-written column, and I found myself nodding in agreement as I read. So far, my cork was intact.

Then I turned to the online comments—something I’ve only recently started doing. The first half-dozen responses echoed my sentiments, with some minor quibbles over specific points.

But then came the comment that made my blood boil and my cork fly. A reader from Boston dismissed the entire column implying it was all liberal lunacy and overstatements. That kind of reaction isn’t new, and I was prepared to brush it off—until I reached their final argument.

In reference to federal employee layoffs, they wrote:

“Those who are crying a river for all federal employees should remember that things like that happen to millions of Americans every single day, and guess who is mourning them—no one.” (My emphasis.)

Where did that claim come from? A misleading tweet? A sensationalized headline? In reality, job losses fluctuate, but on average, about 3.25 million people lose their jobs each month—that’s roughly 150,000 per business day. A lot of people, yes, but nowhere near “millions every single day.”

And you know what? People do mourn for those who lose their jobs in the private sector. I’ve seen it firsthand, especially in health care, where private equity firms swoop in, pay those at the top, and gut the support staff. Incidentally, those same private equity firms stand to gain the most from the continuation of the Trump tax cuts.

So today, I’m venting—not just at one misinformed comment, but at the broader atmosphere of misinformation and distrust that allows such claims to flourish. I’ll try to put the cork back in before my next post—but no promises!

The last time I used my blog to contemplate bullies was last October. In that post, I told the story of Gary and his confederate Jean, the tyrants of my freshman year in high school. Their ruthlessness and aggressiveness were used against the weak and frightened just to gain a bit of pocket change and a sense of power. I concluded that post by comparing them to the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump.

Since October, two events have led me to reexamine that post. The first was a surprise, and the other was totally to be expected.

The first. I was sitting on the sidelines of my usual pickleball court, waiting for my turn to play. I was chatting with Betty, my partner in the previous game. We went through the usual routine of exchanging names, occupations, and a bit of history. To our surprise, we both attended the same Rogers Park high school.

When she told me her maiden name, my jaw dropped. “You’re Gary’s sister!” I exclaimed.

It was true. She was the sister of the nightmare of my youth. Without prompting, she said, “I know he was a terror, but he was really such a nice guy. And he was a great brother. No one EVER hassled me. Jean was a sweetheart too.”

I replied that I was sure Gary looked out for her, but in my heart, I knew there was no way I would ever think of Gary and Jean as “nice guys.” You are what you do.

That motto is also borne out by the other, less surprising, event I referred to above. The election of Donald Trump has given new meaning to bullying. Along with his pal Jean Elon, he has set his sights on remaking our country as a monument to himself, King Donald I. Instead of pocket change he tries to shake mineral rights out of the pockets of those he terrorizes. He lacks any empathy for those he attacks. He defends his tyrant buddies, but I doubt he can find one of them who would consider him a “nice guy.”

I survived my freshman year in high school by avoiding Gary whenever I could. The only way to survive now is to resist and fight back. I hope you can show me the way.

Last night, I attended a local Board of Trustees meeting in our village. The meeting discussed an issue that was raising some heat among the town’s residents. Many of the villagers stepped forward to address the Board. Some received thunderous ovations after they spoke, but others were not treated as kindly.

The issue at hand was tangentially related to tax rates, which led one resident to say (and I paraphrase) “I understand why I have to pay taxes for the schools, even though I don’t have school-age children. But why do I have to pay taxes for a library? It’s 2025, who needs a library?”

My heart sank.

I am sure I can remember every public library I have ever spent time in. I started visiting the Chicago Public Library Branch on Clark Street in Rogers Park as a toddler My mother firmly clenched my hand as she browsed the shelves, looking for a summer read. Soon I was allowed to explore the library on my own—followed by journeys downtown to hunt and peck at the children’s section of the Michigan Avenue Central Library.

I fondly recall my first library card, and the bright strips of paper inserted into each book at checkout. I also recall how my reading tastes changed from Dr. Suess stories to Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, to enjoying the Grand Dame of Mystery, Agatha Christie. It was in a library book that I found out who murdered Roger Ackroyd.

As I grew older, my love for libraries only deepened and as a suburbanite, I always took advantage of nearby libraries. I quickly learned where the new fiction was kept, how to find the best mysteries, and where I could find interesting magazines to kill a few minutes while waiting for someone. I even won a trivia/book treasure hunt contest at one municipal branch. That was years before my Jeopardy! debut.

I discovered so many authors at my library: John Le Carre and his British agents, Daniel Silva and his Israeli team, and Lee Child and his American loner. For a taste of something different, there was thought-provoking or historical non-fiction.

When Barb convinced me that my long daily commute was a perfect time to listen to audiobooks, I prowled until I found my library’s Books-on-CD section. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden was the first novel I listened to, and it remains one of my favorites. Ernest Hemingway, Philip Roth, and even Harlan Coben went from the library’s CD rack to the player in my car. And when cars no longer came equipped with a CD player, the library had provisions for downloading to my phone. From there via Bluetooth I could convey the latest Dana French novel to my SUV’s speakers.

Libraries are wonderful, magical, places. So to the woman who spoke at the Board meeting, I need to say that maybe, maybe, no one NEEDS a library. But what a world of pleasure they can provide!

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