Meryl Streep is a courageous, compassionate woman, who said what the rest of us wanted to say, but she was heard, and what she said struck a nerve, especially for Trump (whose name she didn’t even mention). Reason has flown out the window about politics. The Trumpster has reached the point at which he can do nothing wrong in the eyes of his worshipers. They take offense at any criticism of their new deity, yet they are resplendent with insults and criticisms of any opposition, even if those criticisms are based upon supposition and lies. They see only what they wish to see and always find ways to dismiss his mean-spirited side and his meandering opinions that change daily. I’ve given up trying to rationalize.
Perhaps the most painful lesson our democracy has ever seen will occur over the next four years (or whatever time elapses before an impeachment). Our country will suffer for a while in ways we probably can’t yet imagine, but perhaps even the Trumps and Trumpettes will realize at last that something was horribly wrong, and their siding with and protecting this sinister man was a mistake they will wish they had never made. Time will tell, but I’m not as blindly optimistic and starry eyed as some of my friends seem to be. They are bedazzled beyond repair. JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
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