I Speak Life!

I belly laughed when the President reached out to the Media and made a formal request for them to live stream his speech that is happening on Tuesday night from the Oval Office. Trump has continually bashed the media at every turn.  He has called the media, "The Enemy of the People" too many times to count.  That term has roots in a history I truly hope Trump is not aware of, because if he is, his use of the term is even worse. The phrase dates back to Roman times, but came into more regular use during the French Revolution.  Ennemi du peuple was used to refer to those who disagreed with the new French government during the Reign of Terror, a period during which thousands of revolutionaries were executed by guillotine. It's next very obvious use was by the Nazis, during the Third Reich's rule in Germany.  Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels referred to Jews as "A sworn enemy of the German people". The term gained its widest use by Joseph Stalin durin...

800,000 federal workers, most of which live paycheck to paycheck, are without pay for a third week in a row now because of the ongoing partial government shutdown.  Museums are closed, trash is overflowing in parks, federal workers are opening gofundme pages to get by, and more. One federal worker moved to another part of the country to start a federal job just one week before the shutdown, and now faces homelessness if the shutdown doesn't end soon. A couple, both contractors working for NASA, found themselves out of work due to the shutdown.  They were in the process of adoption but that is on hold now because they cannot afford the Guardian Ad Litem payment the court needs to finalize the adoption.  They also can't throw the birthday/adoption party for the child they wanted to, and have no idea how they are going to pay their mortgage. A married couple, both out of work due to the shutdown, are at a point they have to pull their children out of day care because t...

I have been deep into politics for the past few years, and it is beginning to truly weigh on me, so at the end of 2018, I came to a personal decision that I was going to partake in a project I have been putting off for a couple of decades now.  One of my goals in life is to publish a novel (or multiple).  I have enjoyed the written word since childhood, and have always meant to create a novel.  As most of you know, however, life happens, and I have always come up with excuses to avoid working on said novel.  I have decided there is no more room for excuses, and I am not getting any younger at this point, so 2019 is the year of the Dunkel Novel! I have teamed up with a friend of mine who is also going to be working on a book in 2019, and we will be supporting each other throughout the process by peer checking material and holding each other to self-imposed deadlines.  I will continue blogging as well, because there is no escaping the world around us and I w...