Where Were the Dogs??

 

These rosaries I get at antiques shops are so interesting. Today I prayed with one that had extra Our Father beads at the beginning and the end. Now virtually every rosary I have ever seen uses the centerpiece for the starting Our Father and final Glory Be, but why not have dedicated beads for that? It's not wrong, just different. It makes me think of how studying a foreign language gets you to see that there is more than one way to set things up. Of course, in this case not having dedicated beads is more efficient, and this rosary is a very long one because of this setup. I wish I knew more about where it came from.

Yesterday I tried to sign into my Irish class, which was supposed to be starting up for the first time since Christmas break, but the teacher never started the Zoom meeting, so I joined a family one that goes on every week at the same time. Just now I was getting ready to join my Basque class, which was supposed to start up tonight for the first time since Christmas, but the teacher sent a message saying he was postponing until next week. So this is my linguistics-free week.

People keep saying about the Capitol riot on Wednesday, "This isn't who we are!" but there are only so many times you can say that until you have to realize that, yes, this IS who we are. I was reading an op-ed by a black woman who is new in Congress, and she was comparing the police presence at Black Lives Matter protests she had attended with the police presence (or lack thereof) at the Capitol. One line really got me: "Where were the dogs?" Damn straight - they have always had police dogs at protests for racial justice, but they wouldn't want dogs tearing the precious, precious white flesh of the wealthy rioters who support Trump. And this is a really strong clue that they knew these people weren't Antifa, because Trump wouldn't want dogs threatening his people, but he certainly wouldn't mind them tearing apart leftists. He knew this was coming because he planned it. And we elected him. (Well, not me personally.) So this is precisely who we are. We are people who are fine with the police shooting and teargassing and siccing dogs on people who are peacefully protesting for their right to survive, but we are not okay with any sort of violence toward an unruly mob who break into government buildings hollering, "Kill Mike Pence! Kill Pelosi!" This is what our country is, and what it always has been, and until we really face that fact, this will always be who we are. 

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