Catching up, here...
A favorite sign at the June 14 "No Kings" march and rally.
It was a Sunday morning...
She's smiling--there was lots of that--but overall it was somber:
On the morning of the protest, we had heard that a gunman had stalked and shot four people
here, killing two people, state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband–– and their dog.
Their
dog! Gilbert, a golden retriever, "was with them again Friday when the
Hortmans lay in state at the Capitol in St. Paul." [via PBS]
Political assassinations; and the gunman was still on the loose.
It
was too late to cancel the rally at the State Capitol, but organizers
warned people to stay away. Many I talked to said they felt more
compelled to SHOW UP.
"It matters even more," I said to a friend who expressed concern.
I hadn't made a new sign--figured my cat could do another round...
Below, with bink and King Kong...
More cat eyes, more smiles--it was good to be around others:
And Alexei Navalny...
Talk about showing up. You know, he had returned to Russia after almost dying of an attempted assassination by poison, knowing what would happen.
Navalny predicted, in his prison diary:
"I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here. There will not be anybody to say goodbye to... All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I'll never see my grandchildren."
And that did happen. He was arrested and sent to an Arctic prison, where he died of maltreatment.
Why, people were always asking him, did he return, knowing that?
Because, he said,
"I don't want to give up my country or betray it.
If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.
"And, if you’re not prepared to do that, you have no convictions.
You just think you do.
But those are not convictions and principles;
they’re only thoughts in your head." —newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/21/alexei-navalny-patriot-memoir
Reading the ^ New Yorker excerpts of Nalanvy's prison diaries, I was amazed at two things.
1. He's funny!
Here he pretends to blame his wife, Yulia, for writing to him about "preparing crimes":
2. Nalanvy was a man of faith.
Raised atheist, he had entered the Orthodox Christian faith.
This especially struck me because it's one of the things gulag survivor
Varlam Shalamov listed as one three possible factors in maintaining your
humanity.
(The others being spite and indifference. (Spite, I love that.))
And it seems faith literally did help Navlany. He didn't survive, that was not possible, but he did maintain his humanity--and his sense humor.
About living/dying in prison, Navalny wrote:
"You lie in your bunk looking up at the one above and ask yourself whether you are a Christian in your heart of hearts. It is not essential for you to believe some old guys in the desert once lived to be eight hundred years old, or that the sea was literally parted in front of someone.
"But are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins? Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff?
"If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about?
Why, under your breath, would you mumble a hundred times something you read from a hefty tome you keep in your bedside table? Don’t worry about the morrow, because the morrow is perfectly capable of taking care of itself.
"My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else.
They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches.
"As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me."
______________
To wrap up, a bit of wicked humor. You remember Trump said children only need two or three dolls and five pencils?
