Surely I am not the only one to notice that the three people who have publically responded to President Trump with courage and defiance are women – the Rev. MaryAnn Budde, Claudio Sheinbaum, the President of Mexico, and Janet Mills, the Gov. of Maine.

I am trying not to take the side of one gender against another, but it is tempting. And, beyond that it is so very, very sad.

Working with pieces picked up in many places… this one stands out: it is from the novel After Annie by Anna Quindlen, pg 202

“There was that moment somewhere between the ages of his two boys and where his big one was heading, when it seemed they got the memo that real guys talked about jump shots, and team standings and which girl had a nice set on her, that it was time to put the lid on everything else, everything that meant anything. Even watching them all trudge from the cabins to their parents’ cars…was like watching people who knew that real feeling was forbidden. To say goodbye, the most effusive bumped into one another, shoulder ricocheting off its oppisite, not hugging like the girls. How could they possibly comfort one another if something bad happened? Becoming a man seemed to mean becoming a person who would be poisoned by loss and heartbreak and still pretend that neither existed.”

No wonder we are in such a mess.