WHAT WILL WE DO AS AMERICANS?

 

By Ruth A. Sheets

January 21, 2026

This morning Robert Reich presented a challenging “Office Hours” in his Substack column.  He asked what we would risk “to counter ICE’s Bullying and Brutality?”  He gave 4 choices from “doing nothing” (writing to members of congress and signing petitions) to putting one’s life on the line.  I was not the only respondent who had some difficulty with this question.  Issues of racism, immigrants, and ignorance came up as one would expect.  These are some of my thoughts on this question. 

To one comment, I said, how terribly sad that whole communities have chosen to teach and curate hatred of anything they don't understand or fear instead of working together to understand and include.  There is value for some in this kind of negative behavior performed while claiming a religious faith that demands love and inclusion as well as service.  It helps some people to believe in their own superiority. It is a deeply engrained hypocrisy that has for many, become normalized.  Trump is just the most current practitioner, the con artist who sets one group against another and models how to do it while looking like the "good guy" just passing on the  secrets of life.  It seems We the People, or at least the part of us that cares about this nation will have to stand en masse to show others that they don't have to build their lives on hatred, dismissal of others,  and ignorance unless they choose, and it is  a choice.  Trump will never stop his conning ignorance because dementia does that to a person, but We the People can help each other become more like the people we claim we are.    

Compliance was a topic because of the way a lot of Republicans, white people in power, and some others have “obeyed in advance” to the illegal orders and actions of Trump and those around him.  My response to that is, people who so easily comply and go along with what the rest of us know is nonsense do it because they think it is what their group expects of them.  If they don't, they won't be accepted by that group, for them, a disaster.  We so often teach our children to comply "because I said so" and forget in our frustration that an explanation is necessary, if not at that moment, shortly afterward.  Women are groomed and threatened into compliance from birth and it is amazing that so many of us manage to break out and say "no."  Peer pressure is enormous in most people's lives and unfortunately those peers who are bullies and bad actors get by far the most attention and coverage.  Just look at our media to see how this works in real time.  Trump was often covered far more than Obama or Biden when they were actually president.  Those who are most susceptible definitely took notice and got the message that Trump was something special or the media wouldn’t cover him so much, and their loyalty went directly to him.  It still rests there no matter how much those people suffer from Trump's actions.  I do not believe these people are stupid, just willing to follow what is expected of them with as little fuss as possible.  We encourage that kind of compliance and blame people who don't comply as being "bad mothers" or "absent fathers" or "troublemakers" or whatever term those doing the manipulating come up with to shame people back into line.  Thank goodness there have always been people who would resist that shaming and called it what it is "BS."  We need more of that standing up right now, but without insulting too badly, those who have been cowed by the social pressures to conform and comply. 

Related to the many comments about the Trumpian treatment of immigrants, I said, yes, immigrants have always been America's strength, but rarely seen as that until the masses had become used to their presence, their accent as it disappeared, and their different customs.  Unfortunately, many Americans never allowed themselves to "get used to" Black and Native Americans, possibly because those folks had been present here from the beginning.  It was so hard for people who had been groomed to believe in the inferiority of Black and Native peoples, to readjust to the fact that they are at least as intelligent and capable as white folks and due to appalling treatment over the years had become even more resourceful in their efforts to survive.  It seems a whole lot of people like believing in their own superiority and will do nearly anything to keep that false idea alive and kicking.  We saw that on full display in the 2024 election when a woman of color who was eminently qualified ran for president.  I am sure there was some fraud perpetrated by Musk and his AIers, but if the same number of Democrats had come out to vote as had in 2020 for Biden, the Musk cheating would have been obvious and caught.  They didn't and despite all their whining about something or other, the real reason was racism and misogyny, the deep-seated need to keep a woman of color out of high office.  I am guessing we don't think about it much, but it is there and part of nearly everything white people do.  I taught in a disadvantaged school district with about 85% of the students Black, Hispanic, and other people of color.  I told them that it was likely I, as a white woman, would do or say something racist in my time with them, even though unintended because that is how endemic racism works.  I asked them to tell me if/when I did.  I don't know if I did because they never said anything, but I did know it was a definite possibility that racism would raise its ugly head at times.  The mostly white men recruited for ICE are guaranteed steeped in the racism that is endemic and are encouraged by their "leaders" to grow it and use it to "identify" immigrants of color they can snatch (kidnap) and drag off to the prisons that they are told those people deserve for daring to come into this supposedly "white country."  It is clear this is racism and also that our Supreme Court's Roberts 6 embody that racism, even Thomas whom one would think should know better.  ICE operatives are permitted to whine "I was scared for my life" as they murder and brutalize people when they are the only ones armed, masked, and wearing combat gear.  Does that mean white men are more easily damaged than unarmed people of color?  Inquiring minds want to know.   

This issue will not go away.  I am hoping Congress will be sick of the anti-American behavior of ICE and Sec. Noem of the Dept. of Homeland Security, and will totally defund and disband ICE.  ICE is a menace and we all need to think of how we will respond if/when they show up at our door.

A CULT OF STUPIDITY?

By Ruth A. Sheets

January 12, 2026

A member of Robert Reich’s thread and I had an interesting discussion for several days.  We discussed many things, but most interesting was a few exchanges about the general stupidity of the Trump regime.  These are two of my contributions to that discussion.  I realize it is only my side, but isn’t that often what happens in a blog!  

J L, I think character is our most important asset as Did Dr. King, and it was his words that I heard when I was 10 that started me on that path.  Many folks work hard to regularly adjust their character to fit the circumstance.  Such adjustment enables folks like Steve Miller to incite those “character-adjusters to do violence and lesser harms in the name of whatever hatred Miller et all drag out that day.  They say to themselves “that’s not who I am; I just got carried away.” 

When their hate works to do massive harm as Miller's hatred of immigrants has done, through ICE and others (hypothesized that it is due to his hatred of his Jewishness), he will keep it and magnify it.  When there is no accountability for the violence and cruelty, the orchestrator’s need for the "violence" multiplies and more people suffer which we now see in the establishment of concentration camp prisons for immigrants.  The vast majority held there, have done no crime, not even a traffic violation, and some are American citizens.  The crazy part, Miller et al don't have to do anything but open their mouths and it will be done (despite the fact that Miller has been elected to nothing by no one).  

Miller/Trump/Vance/Vought have now corralled Republicans/MAGAs all across the country to buy into his/their hatred of immigrants, ignoring what the American people want because, who is going to stop them?  They now have an army to stand against everyone else, and a lie-squad that can pump out lies before the truth is available.  All of this is criminal, far worse than anything immigrants have done in this country. 

How do we get more people to stand up, to display their positive character?  The death of Ms. Good in Minneapolis last week was meant to scare us all off, but I hope the response continues to be massive courageous protest.  then bring state charges and convictions against the perpetrators, whom the toddler president can't pardon. 

The white house media reps who heard Caroline Leavitt's clear lie last week should call her out on it all the time, no matter where she is and ask how she would feel if that had been her mother murdered in the street because an angry ICE agent had a gun and was masked.  She will whine and try to hide behind her Baby Donnie, but everyone except a few ignorant MAGAs knows that the entire regime lied about this murder, every one of them!  The regime is trying to gaslight, but most people choose to believe their own eyes and the videos taken at the moment of the murder, not the made-up AI altered fakes that Trump just released, thinking we’re all as stupid as he is!

J L, I think people who live in bubbles as many of certain careers or income brackets do, don't think past the confines of the bubble, even pushing their kids to bond only with folks from their own bubble, their race too, of course.  Most of the work gets done, often by the workers in the rich owners’ corporations, but the guys at the top don't know how or by whom.  They don't care if the wages for the workers is adequate, why should they care, particularly if the work gets done! 

Those owners and the regime in DC that supports them currently ignore global warming thinking if they can just make a few more100 billion they will be safe if the cataclysm arrives.  That thinking is truly beyond stupid, but if one is stuck in Bubbleland, their future is about making sure nothing is demanded of them in the present that will throw them off-course.  They buy politicians whom they think will work to that end on their behalf, and they do. 

People among those actual workers will suffer first, but that is OK with those in Bubbleland because in their minds, the crisis will never touch them because they have planned.  That sounds to me like a kind of cult of stupidity.  It would be a good idea if We the People outside the bubbles start trying to punch some holes to deflate those bubbles for the sake of all of us and our sacred planet.  We need a few pins in the hands of people who actually care and want to bring some reality to Bubbleland.  

It’s about intelligence – really?

By Ruth A. Sheets

Happy New Year again!  Well, back to my usual blogs.  I hope you will try some of the books I loved last year. 

These are responses I made to commenters on Robert Reich’s thread on Substack.  I hope you find my responses at least tolerable in addressing the insanity we are now experiencing.  There is a lot of negativity lately on the threads, and from what others are saying, many botts active right now.  I guess they think their “despair” can influence us to give up or comply in support of the appalling behavior of Trump and his toddler pool.  Not happening!  A commenter named Rick told me that I am  “giving too much credit to intelligent people, a rare commodity in America these days.”  I answered right back. 

Rick, yes I am.  There are a lot of intelligent people in this nation, even among the MAGAs.  A lot of those MAGAs are looking for something clearly missing in their life:  personal worth, some control in their lives, respect.  They work at low-paying jobs or if they are able, in slightly higher-paid work, but work where their bosses think of them as cogs that make their business operate, nothing else of value to the corporation.  When Donald Trump was falsely portrayed on "The Apprentice as a great businessman," they thought he was something special because he owned buildings with his name on them and could just say "you're fired" and the person was gone from the show (fake business).  The viewers didn't know the whole thing, presented as though it were "reality TV" but in real life, it took more than 200 hours of taping each episode for one 42 minute broadcast.  That is nothing like "reality" but the exhausted viewers saw what the producers, deceivers wanted them to see.  Then a bunch of despicable Republican operatives saw their chance to put into office an ignoramus with no experience, but who was a narcissist, a serial liar, hated everyone who did not bow to him, and was easily manipulated, but could be made popular among a bunch of folks.  He was their man and they went crazy promoting him and his nasty attitude, dismissive language, insults, avoiding mention of his misogyny, racism, and classism.  They knew those would work on their behalf when they got Trump into office.  They helped him get Russian involvement and probably committed other crimes to get their Baby Donnie elected in 2016.  Trump's sex admission tape didn't even shake any of the MAGAs because now they had a cause, a hero, someone they thought cared about them, even respected them; they had the hat to prove it!  Trump didn't win the popular vote, but it didn't matter since the Electoral College was designed to give too much power to the small and at the time slave states than to the actual majority of the people.  Throughout the first term and Biden's term that same cadre of despicables manipulated the courts, the media, the MAGAs and more to get Trump elected again in 2024 despite 2 honest impeachments and an attempted coup/insurrection.  That 2024 election was probably manipulated in the "swing states" by Musk and his AI and Starlink, but Democrats wanted to prove some kind of gracious loser persona, so they did nothing to challenge the election, which they should have.  Oh well, so now, we have an old man with dementia in the white house being manipulated by appalling actors like the ball of hate Steve Miller, the rich unscrupulous guy Vought, the whiny white boy Vance, and so many more in Trump's toddler pool.  The MAGAs are desperate because they don't know what to do and who to believe because they have been betrayed and don't know how to respond beyond what they have been doing for the past decade which gave them some orgasmic moments of power and belonging.  It is hard to reverse a decade-long clinging to a fake.  This is not about intelligence; it is about how people are treated and what we have permitted the ultra-rich and bad actors to do to our people.  We do have freedom of speech or should have that, but free speech does not include putting people's lives at risk, insurrection, and abuse by AI, since AI is not human, though its operators are and should be held accountable.   

J L Wrote on how we have lost a sense of the common good, and used the example of how learning about Lincoln was lost when the “meaningless Presidents’ Day” replaced Lincoln’s Birthday celebration.  I responded with this.

J L, so much of our lack of concern for the common good has been partly attributable to an over-emphasis in schools on testing, learning to read for itself, not for the purpose for learning to read, understanding and knowledge.  Teachers are often given lousy curricula, then expected to teach it to the letter to classes of a wide range of students who learn differently.  There is often little heart in it.  The passages to read are not particularly interesting and not discussed beyond basic comprehension.  We don't trust our kids to have curiosity and a desire to learn, so we make school like a learning prison for them then wonder why some act so badly and others just comply because it's easier.  We can do better, but we need people in the Departments of Education federal, state, and local who know something of education, its challenges, and the benefit of trusting our well-trained teachers to make connections with their students, and provide whatever support is needed.  My favorite teachers growing up were those who made their own paths to learning while using the curricula as guides.  That was true in college too.  Teachers can still talk about Lincoln on his birthday as well as the others born the same day, year, and decade and how their thinking compares.  Children like being on their phones and computers, so what about asking kids to go online to find out about Lincoln, Darwin (born at the same time), Louis Braille, same year, and ask what they might have been like at the students' current age.  What might have helped them to grow into the adults they became?  Creative teachers can work that into any curricula.  There are good materials online to support drifting important concepts into curricula without the crazies realizing what is happening.  Our kids would benefit and so would this nation.    

So, these are two  comments I submitted.  I don’t know how they will be received as I wrote them today, but they are both things I needed to say and that I wanted to share with you too.  We must be aware of the efforts to undermine nearly every aspect of life so most will give up.  I don’t think giving up is going to happen.  The murder of a protester in Minneapolis by a Border Patrol officer is not going to win friends and influence people and neither is the attack on Venezuela and the theft of their oil because a toddler-man with dementia in the white house ordered it or that’s what we have been told. 

Keep standing for those actions that will support a move toward the common good and challenging the greed, lies, disinformation, and the rest that give cover to the selfish autocrats who would do as much harm as possible to this nation and our world.

BEST BOOKS READ IN 2025 PART II

By Ruth A. Sheets

Here I am again ready to share with you the best books I read in the second half of the year.  Again, they are from a range of genre.  I hope you will try a few and let me know if I had made a good choice.  You might notice that I especially like non-fiction.  

1. Someone Has Led This Child to Believe by Regina Louise (Regina had a childhood first of being passed off from her father to mother and back, then when neither wanted to care for her, she went into foster care where she was abused, ultimately put into an institution for troubled teens, then to a mental institution where she was drugged heavily.  A system worker wanted to adopt her, but was never permitted.  She went to college and came to own a salon and to become a writer, against all odds.)  

2. Integrated, How American Schools Failed Black Children by Noliwe Rooks (The author discusses the case Brown v. Board of Education and its “intent” to integrate schools while what happened was conflict, closed schools so Black children could not attend, Black qualified teachers fired, Black students being relegated to the classes for poorly functioning children.  Now schools are often as segregated as pre-Brown.  The old segregated schools for Black children did have qualities of unity and support which often do not exist now. 

3. Who is Government, The Untold Story of Public Service ed. by Michael Lewis (I had no idea of what to expect with this one, but it was great!  The various authors present the stories of government workers who have done amazing things because they love their subject and are dedicated to the people of this nation.      Our government is “not designed to highlight the individual achievement of unelected officials,” but so many have done remarkable almost impossible things for the benefit of this nation (well, until Trump got his second term).

4. The Counterfeit Countess, The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust by Elizabeth B. White & Joanna Sliwa (This is a powerful book about a Jewish teacher who was able to get the ID of a Polish countess and use it to get food to the Poles at one of the concentration camps in Poland.  This book describes how violence, hatred, evil grow and will not stop by themselves.  This woman was so courageous and caring.  Everyone in this country should read this one to see what the Trump/Miller/Vance/etc. EVIL are capable of doing if not stopped, and how even one person can make a difference.)

5. Solidarity, The Past, Present, and Future of A World-Changing Idea by Leah Hunt-Hendrix & Astra Taylor (The idea of solidarity is huge.  It is a way of bringing people together for a critical cause that has serious implications for themselves and many others toward improvement of a life situation:  unions, Civil rights, government change, climate change, the arts, and so much more.)

6. Not Another Banned Book by Dana Alison Levy (Molly and her reading friends in her school’s book club learn the books they are reading are scheduled to be banned and the teacher/librarian who led the group was on probation.  The students decided to fight back and got an online program going to raise money to buy the banned books to put into the Little Free Libraries around town.  The quirky group is leaving 8^th grade for high school, each in their own place with their own style.)

7. Cults Like Us, Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America by Jane Borden (This amazing book describes the US from the beginning at Plymouth Rock, as a collection of people who saw working for the end times at the center of life.  She talks about how gaining money at the expense of others is part of this because it is about the individual doing his, sometimes her own thing as though they were the messiah, or sent by the messiah to announce the coming.  She included actual cults and there were plenty of them, utopian communities, corporations like Amway, religious groups, and others.  The groups demand conformity, complete subservience, and often permit the guy in charge to sexually exploit the other members.)

8. How We Learn to Be Brave, Decisive Moments in Life and Faith by Mariann Edgar Budde (This woman I admire describes her life as a series of experiences of learning courage, attempting to follow examples of others’ courage.  She is now the Episcopal Bishop of DC, and a strong, but as she describes, a far less than perfect person who tries to stand with the people to do what’s right.)  Note:  She is the priest who called on Trump to be kind and merciful as president the day after his inauguration.  He couldn’t hear such words.

9. In the Garden of the Righteous, The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews During the Holocaust by Richard Hurowitz (This book grabbed me from the beginning, presenting 10 stories of non-Jews who risked their lives to help Jewish people trying to escape the Nazis in different countries.  Some of the people saved hundreds, even thousands of people while others one or two, all important!      

10. Money Lies and God by Catherine Stewart (This was a walk through the right-wing pseudo-religion movement which is more about power than the Christianity it espouses.  The author shows the history and claims of this group of mostly white men but a few white women pumping out all sorts of lies about people not like themselves, then pushing their poison all over the world.  The author says action on the part of those against this movement is the best response to it. 

11. There is No Place for Us, Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (This is one of the hardest books I have read in a really long time.  The author follows several families whose incomes are not sufficient to have a decent place to live due to outrageous rents.  They have children and move regularly as they can’t afford rents or car repairs, or any of the other expenses that arise.  All are working but even with 3 jobs can’t afford a place, often forced out of a home or job for being a few minutes or days late with rent.  So much needs to be done. )

12. On Savage Shores, How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Dobbs Pennock (I knew some indigenous Americans had been brought to Europe in the 16^th century and beyond, but didn’t realize that it was more than a few and to Spain, Portugal, and England mostly.  This is a hard book to read because of the cruelties involved:  the slavery, the dismissal of people’s rights (particularly in England), the diseases that killed so many when no one had a good idea of how to stop the epidemics.  Good book that should be widely read.)

13. One Big Open Sky by Lesa Cline-Ransome (A group of Black families from Nachez, MS set off for Nebraska where it is said there is land to be purchased to homestead.  The story is told from the viewpoints of the women and girl in one family:  daughter Letty, mother Silvy, and friend Philamena.  Hardships faced the people traveling west:  getting provisions, stranger violence, injuries, illness, and death.  The family arrives after 5 months of travel in a community of mostly Black homesteaders where they, now fatherless plan to make a life.  Gr.3-6 and older)

14. The Paris Deception by Bryn Turnbull (The story follows two women in the Paris art world during WWII:  Fabienne and Joan.  They tried to figure out how to keep the Germans from taking and/or destroying the art from the late 1800s onward.)

15. Eleanor, A Spiritual Biography, The Faith of the 20^th Century’s Most Influential Woman by Harold Ivan Smith (Using previous biographies of the Roosevelts, Eleanor Roosevelt’s own personal writings, and writings for newspapers and magazines, the author presents a portrait of a woman whose faith and acceptance of the faith and backgrounds of others was strong as she tried to follow the teachings of Jesus to love, to care for those who are poor, and to include everyone as children of God.)

16. The Capitol Ghost Mystery by Michelle M. Barone (Sylvy’s class goes on a trip to the Colorado capitol in Denver.  She was disfigured by an accident when she was younger and has no friends until she is paired up with a kid who had bullied her at school.  Together, they solve a mystery for the Capitol, for her family and for her friend’s family.  Fun for gr.5 and up)

17. Murder at an Irish Bakery by Carlene O’Connor (This was a twisted mystery  about a baking competition with all kinds of rivalries, even hatreds with lots of red herrings and good Irish humor.  All the books of the series are good!)

18. 8-Legged Wonders, The Surprising Lives of Spiders by James O’Hanlon (I loved this book about spiders, a critter I have found interesting, I think, since reading Charlotte’s Web,” and watching a spider spin her web across our front door when I was growing up, the same web night after night, catching bugs, but gone in the morning.  I find spiders remarkable and not deserving of the bad reputation they have.  Go spiders, natural pest control!)      

19. The Unquiet Grave by Sharyn McCrumb (This mystery brought to life an actual murder and trial in West Virginia in 1897.  A young woman marries a near stranger and is found dead at the bottom of stairs but the husband doesn’t want her body examined.  They exhumed the body and found evidence of strangulation.  The story is told in various voices.)  I really like Sharyn McCrumb’s mysteries!

20. Newsroom Confidential, Lessons and Worries from an Ink-Stained Life by Margaret Sullivan (The author writes of her life in various jobs writing for and managing newspapers over 40 years.  She discusses her various jobs, the people she worked with, the principles that guided her work, and her responses to the positives and negatives of reporting and writing for public consumption, angry that so much of what is put out is about making money rather than truth.)

21. A Protest History of the United States by Gloria Browne-Marshall (This book is one every high schooler should read with their teachers.  OK, the rest of America should read it too.    It is a great way to look at history from the point of view of those who did not like what was going on at a particular time and let the world know about it from the revolts of enslaved persons to anti-war protesters to constitutionalists to LGBTQ persons, women, and citizens of color.)

22. House of Sticks by Ly Tran (This is the memoir of an immigrant from Vietnam whose father had served with the Americans in the war and was a Prisoner of War of the Communist government for 10 years.  In 1992, he brought his wife and 4 kids to NYC. He was scared of the government, so would not permit his daughter to get glasses even though she could hardly see and was having trouble in school.  They were poor but a determined family and all of the kids became successful, attended college, and made a life for themselves, but it was tough.)

23. Small Acts of Courage, A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy by Ali Velshi (The journalist MSNOW host describes the challenges of his family’s struggles for a better life and the trials of being forced out of countries because of their color.  Despite THAT, they made their mark wherever they were, changing lives wherever they went.  Beautiful!)

24. Hatchet Man, How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutors’ Code and Corrupted the Justice Department by Elie Honig (This was a trip through the second part of Trump’s first administration when Barr was Attorney General and used the position to get Trump off the hook several times for his “criminal” behavior, and used the office for his own purposes.  Anyone interested in politics will find this one interesting.)

25. Shadow Work, The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs that Fill Your Day by Craig Lambert (The author takes readers on a ride through many of the activities we do each day that once people were paid to do on behalf of corporations that now, don’t want to pay people to do, of course, while raking in the bucks:  ordering and serving ourselves at fast food restaurants, checking and bagging our own groceries, pumping our own gas, building our own unassembled furniture.  The author calls it “middle-class serfdom.”  He adds that it has undermined community as it keeps us from talking with those who used to do the work and made everything more personal. 

26. Night on Fire by Ronald Kidd (In this novel, Billie lives in Aniston, AL in 1961 when the Freedom Riders came through town on a Greyhound bus.  She is white but appalled at the way the riders were beaten and the bus burned just because white and Black people were sitting together.  That begins her transition into adulthood in a racist society. Gr.5 and older) 

27. A Pair of Wings by Carole Hopson (This is a fictionalized autobiography of Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman to earn an international pilot’s license.  She had to go to France to get it since no Black woman could get such training here. The author presents a vibrant, ambitious, decent woman who needed to fly.)

28. Grant by Ron Chernow (This is a long book, but portrays a hero of American history not so much as a hero but as a man doing the best he could with what he had.  The parts I found most interesting are those describing his respect for Black Americans and the number of them he put in government positions, even ambassadorships when he was president.  He was not always a great judge of people and was betrayed rather often, but that did not lessen his belief in this nation and its people.

29. Coded Justice, A Thriller by Stacey Abrams (Avery, the hero of Abrams’ past books is asked to investigate a death at a medical research facility where AI is being used to provide medical care for veterans.  A fascinating look at AI’s potential as well as a challenging mystery.)

30. Future Face, A Family Mystery, An Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging by Alex Wagner (Alex’s mother is Burmese and her father from Iowa with European ancestry.  She is an only child and wanted to find out the heritage of her family, visits the countries of origin, and takes the DNA tests to learn more.  This is an interesting and entertaining trip through her research.)  

31. The Indispensables, The Diverse Soldier Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware by Patrick K. O’Donnell (I really liked this book about a group of men from Gloster MA, that I knew only vaguely.  I knew about their major feats:  evacuating Brooklyn and Washington’s crossing, but not the many battles and skirmishes they participated in, their naval actions against British shipping, and so much more.  They were also multi-racial and a wide range of ages.)  

32. What Set Me Free, a True Story of Wrongful Conviction, A Dream Deferred, and A Man Redeemed by Brian Banks & Mark Dagostino (This is a powerful book about the inanities of our criminal justice system.  Brian was accused of a rape that never happened by a girl at his high school.  He was an up-and-coming football star and was tried as an adult, then imprisoned at different prisons in California.  He finally was released but served a 5-year parole with an ankle monitor which made it impossible for him to do much of any job.  The accuser was finally caught confessing that the whole story was a lie.  The CA innocence Project helped to exonerate him.  This is a great book for high school and older students.)

33. Cassandra Speaks, When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes.  By Elizabeth Lesser (The author takes the reader through Western history to look at the story from a woman’s point of view where she was scorned. Threatened, killed for her beliefs, and otherwise deprived of a recounting of her role in human history.  Women have been caught up in being excluded from the structures of power most of the time, which  The author suggests must be changed for women to take our rightful place.

34. Miracles and Wonder, The Historical Mystery of Jesus by Elaine Pagels (Theologian Pagels looks at the scriptures of Jesus life and those that explain the experience of a 1^st Century Rabbi who taught love, acceptance, caring for those who are vulnerable and how and why people all over the world have been drawn to Jesus and still are.  She looked at the Gnostic Gospels and other early writings to find more clues that helped shape early Christianity and the faith that has come to us today.)

35. Palaces for People, How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg (This was a fascinating book about how communities and housing complexes can be designed to make life better for the residents and the community as a whole.  People have to believe the owners care about the properties, there has to be a lot of light, clean public spaces, and other amenities that anyone should expect.

36. Untouchable, How Powerful People Get Away with It by Elie Honig (Ugh!  This book deals with the very rich and powerful and how difficult it is to bring charges for their many crimes and then to get them to stick:  bribery, threats, intimidation, prestige, as well as the challenges of gathering evidence against people who know how to hide things and make things hard for prosecutors, so often people like Trump are rarely indicted.  The author explains it, as a former prosecutor, then declares it wrong!) 

37. The Venetian Bargain by Marina Fiorato (Tera lives in Constantinople but is forced to flee to Venice when her father is ordered on a mission there by the Sultan in 1576.  She is a doctor and finds a place in the city in various jobs until she connects with a male doctor during the plague outbreak.)

38. The Frozen River, A Novel by Ariel Lawhon (Midwife Martha Ballard is brought into a case when a body is found frozen in the ice.  She meets the new doctor in town, an arrogant fool, and various other characters in an actual town in 1790 Maine, and helps solve the murder.  It is based on the life of a midwife who lived there and in all her work, lost no mother and a rare child when delivering over a thousand babies in her area during her career.)

39. Murder By Degrees, A Mystery by Ritu Mukerji (In Philadelphia in 1875, the police find a body in the river.  A woman doctor becomes involved in the investigation.  There is a mistaken identity, and a cast of unsavory rich folks who use the people around them.  Very well done.)

40. Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins, Lessons on Belonging from our DNA by Shoumita Dasgupta (This book presents what scientists know about our DNA, related to race, genetics, and gender, then points out that our biases are hiding as genetics.)

41. A Well-Trained Wife, My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings (Tia was raised in a cult-like set of groups that groomed women to be submissive  wives deserving of beatings by husbands who had been groomed to be abusers, all in the name of god, of course.  Tia tolerates it as long as she can, then just leaves and faces the struggles afterward.  Disturbing, but makes the reader aware of what is out in the world of patriarchal Christianity.)

 Yay!  You made it to the end of this.  Unfortunately, that only took us through November’s collection.  Well, if there are books I just MUST share from my December reads, I will send them later, maybe at the end of a blog.  I hope you enjoyed the variety of comments and brief descriptions of the books I included.  It was fun for me reading back over the terrific books I read this year.  I am already reading a couple of the books that will be counted in next year’s collection.

MY BEST BOOKS READ IN 2025 PART I

By Ruth A. Sheets

I read a large number of books in 2025, around 400.  They are in a wide range of genre.  I love to read and will not complete a book if I don’t like it except when I get too far into the book to give up.  That rarely happens, so here goes.  They are not in any order except the order in which I read them.  I’d like to know if you have read any of these books or plan to read them.  I’d love to discuss them with you. 

1. Alabama v. King, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Criminal Trial That Launched the Civil Rights Movement by Dan Abrams & Fred D. Gray with David Fisher (I knew nothing of this trial which happened in 1956 related to the bus boycott in Montgomery AL after Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat to clear a row of seats for white riders.  Dr. King was accused of inciting an illegal boycott of the city’s buses.  He lost the case due to racism, but the case went to the Supreme Court where segregation on public transportation in this nation was declared unconstitutional.)

2. Shameless, Republicans’ Deliberate Disfunction, and the Battle to Preserve Democracy by Brian Tyler Cohen (This disturbing book looked at the Republican decisions to work to undermine our government and the efforts they used to do it, Trump only one of the many strategies.  Democrats and others need to develop more effective ways to get the message, the truth, out to people geared up for hearing only the most deplorable about the people they don’t care about or trust.)

3. Mena’s Matchbox, A Novel by Yoko Ogawa (a young girl whose father has died goes to stay with her cousin for a short time which turns out to be a year.  Mena is a unique child who has an extraordinary imagination and a weak constitution.  She collects matchboxes with pictures on them, then fills the inside of the boxes with stories of the pictures.  I really liked this one for its uniqueness.  There were no bad guys, not great adventures, just two young girls getting to know each other in a loving home.)

4. We the Poisoned, Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Coverup and the Poisoning of 100,000 People by Jordan Chariton (Every time I think I’ve read the most disturbing book ever, another one comes along.  This time it follows the saga of the Governor of Michigan forcing the town of Flint, mostly minority community, to get their water from the extremely polluted Flint River with none of the safeguards to keep the water from corroding pipelines.  The town was poisoned with lead and other heavy metals, then with Legionnaire’s Disease that killed over a hundred people.

5. Monarchs of the Sea, The Extraordinary 500-Million Year History of Cephalopods by Danna Staaf (I loved this book.  I know little about “cephs” but find them enormously interesting.  They live in all ocean waters and are quite diverse.  More and more fossil evidence is coming to light every year of the diversity and amazing abilities of octopuses, cuddle fish, Squid, nautilus, and the rest. 

6. The British Booksellers by Kristy Cambron (A parallel story of WWI and WWII, connecting people from both times, a love story that resumes in the second war and involves a daughter and the nephew of a German officer saved during WWI.  It takes place in Coventry where there was heavy bombing in November 1940.)

7. What the Tide Leaves Behind, A Novel of County Donegal by Malcolm McDowell Woods (On the death of his mother, Tom goes to her home village in Donegal and falls in love with the place where he finds friends, connections, and a new life and finds a dog companion.)

8. Friendship First, From New Sparks to Chosen Family, How Our Friends Pave the Way for Life-Long Happiness by Gyan Yankovich (We often either forget or don’t realize just how valuable friendships are.  After college, most people don’t make many new friendships.  The author encourages us all to do it for our physical and mental health.)

9. Stand Up Yumi Chung by Jessica Kim (Yumi is a child of immigrants whose big sister is a genius.  Her parents run a restaurant, but Yumi wants to be a comedian.  She accidentally goes into a comedy summer camp and assumes someone else’s identity.  She learns confidence as she negotiates the 2 weeks that summer.  Gr.4-7)

10. The Light Eaters, How the Unseen World of Plant intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe’ Schlanger (I loved this refreshingly new to me look at plants and the ways they communicate with each other and the world.  This includes chemicals, bacteria, some kind of environmental intelligence, and more.  

11. The Algorithm, How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired, and Why We Need to Fight Back Now by Hilke Schellmann (This was a disturbing book about the ways businesses have allowed AI to infiltrate every aspect of the business world from hiring through one’s entire life at a company.  It should be illegal, but somehow it has been decided at some point in the past that corporations own us while we are working for them.  Some corporations even monitor what people are doing off hours, when there should be little to no contact. 

12. Dear Sister, A Memoir of Secrets, Survival and Unbreakable Bonds by Michelle Horton (The author’s sister shoots her partner after years of unspeakable abuse.  The court prosecutors twist the case to make it look like he was the abused one despite masses of evidence to the contrary.  The author cared for her children until finally she was released 7 years after she was arrested.)

13. Mockingbird Summer by Lynda Rutledge (Corky (Catherine) turned 13.  She likes playing softball for her church.  She meets a girl from literally, “the other side of the tracks.”  America can run extremely fast and is a natural at softball.  She is Black and some white men in the town don’t want her on the team or anywhere else.  The girls become friends but the friendship fades due to the problems of racism.)

14. The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris (This memoir gave a better account of who Kamala Harris is than any of the media coverage during the last 2 campaigns.  It still breaks my heart to realize that racism and misogyny let the American people vote for an ignorant, evil old man with dementia over an extremely talented, caring, competent woman of color.)   

15. The Nurse’s Secret by Amanda Skenandore (This was an excellent fictional portrait of a life in late 19^th Century New York City.  Una Kelly, a pick-pocket decides to enter a nursing school at Belview to escape a murder charge for a crime she did not commit.  She finds she likes nursing, not always the rules and the arrogant male doctors she works for.  This turns into a mystery even though that was not obvious from the beginning.) 

16. **26. White Fragility, Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin Diangelo (This was a hard book to read, but essential.  I have discussed racism with my students frequently and acknowledged that I could make a racist comment or assumption, although I would do my best to avoid it.  The author says that is because we live in a society that is systemically racist.  Nearly every aspect of our society is steeped in the ideas of white superiority and the inferiority of everyone else.  Children drink this in from birth.  Pretending it is not real or that we are past it as John Roberts claimed in undermining the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is not honest.)

17. The Sisterhood by Helen Bryan (A convent in 16^th Century Spain is threatened with the inquisition, so sisters go to the new world and settle in the mountains of Peru.  In the early 1980s a child is rescued from a shipwreck who has a medal from that convent.  She is adopted by an American family.  She eventually goes to Spain to study an artist but connects with that original convent.  A unique feminist novel.)

18. Ruin their Crops on the Ground, The Politics of Food in the United States from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch by Andrea Freeman (Just the title should make every American weep.  I had to stop reading this at times because of the utter cruelty and indifference described.  There is so much in this short book to make us all wonder again, what does it mean to be American and how do we change our priorities from  rich white men to inclusion and concern?)

19. Black Women Will Save the World, An Anthem by April Ryan (This White House reporter describes the challenges Black women have always had and that they are seen as lesser in most settings.  However, it has been Black women who have been the foot-soldiers of the Civil Rights and Women’s movements, generally unsung, often behind the lines, doing what has to be done.) 

20. The Small and the Mighty, 12 Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by Sharon McMahon (This book is about people we rarely hear of, but who made a big positive difference in American History:  Gouverneer Morris wrote the preamble of the Constitution; Clara Brown cared for people who settled in the West; Virginia Randolph educated thousands of Black children at the turn of the 20^th Century, training the whole child; Katherine Lee Bates, educator, feminist, poet wrote “America the Beautiful”; Inez Mulhalland, activist for women’s rights; and Claudette Culvin, refused to give up her seat on the bus, for example)

21. Under the Eye of Power, How Fear of Secret Societies Shaped American Democracy by Colin Dickey (This was a history of America through the “eyes” of secret societies, conspiracy theories, and more, most of them racist, male, and anti-immigrant, but each had its own allure, including the Know-Nothings, the KKK, Free Masons, and Q-Anon.)

22. The Time is Now, A Call to Uncommon Courage by Joan Chittister (Sr. Joan tells us that just doing religious formulas and practices is not sufficient for this day.  We need to be prophets, calling out people who are not caring for those who are poor, left out, ignored, and those who use and abuse others, claiming it is in god’s name.  Even if one is not religious, this book can have meaning and be a guide to action.)

23. The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear (This book in the Mazie Dobbs series is set in 1945 just at the end of WWII.  Mazie finds some “squatters” in a house a friend owns and finds they were trained to fight if the Germans had invaded Britain.  She also finds the son of a friend who had been killed in 1914.)

24. I Saw Death Coming, A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction by Kidada E. Williams (This was a heart-braking, infuriating book to read, but something any white American in a position of power should have to read.  When people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump with their toddler friends try to erase the history of anyone but whites and a few others whom whites approve of, it should be remembered just how horrific white men have been to Black Americans, as emphasized in this book about Reconstruction.)

25. The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard (A desperate American woman runs away, ending up In Costa Rica, at a hotel where she connects with a hotel owner who leaves the hotel to her.  Through ups and downs, she runs the hotel, cares for the people who help her, and comes to love the place as her home. 

26. Falsehoods Fly, Why Misinformation Spreads and How to Stop It by Paul Thagard (This was a terrific book about lies told in a variety of media and how to counter them.  The author uses highly recognizable examples like COVID 19 and vaccines, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Climate change.) 

27. More To the Story by Hena Kahn (Jamira lives in Atlanta with a close family.  They often frustrate her.  She wants to be a writer and writes for the school newspaper.  Her life changes when her father goes abroad for work and her little sister is diagnosed with cancer.  Gr.4-8) 

28. Life as We Know It Can Be, Stories of People, Climates, and Hope in a Changing World by Bill Weir (An excellent book in the form of a letter to the author’s son about how the world is changing and not necessarily in a good way, and things we can do to make life better for all of us.)

29. I Thought it Was Only Me, But it Isn’t!  Making the Journey from What Will People Think to I am Enough, Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame by Brené Brown (Everyone I know has felt shame, usually done to us deliberately or triggered by others.  Brown offers some different ways of looking at shame and how to respond when it is being pushed on us.  Everyone should read this one because men get shamed too, though for them it is usually about being seen as weak.

30. The Bletchley Riddle by Rta Sepetys & Steve Sheinkin (This was a great combination mystery and historical fiction.  It takes place in Britain at the start of WWII.  Jacob, a young man and his 14-year-old sister Lizzy are puzzle wizards and work at Bletchley, the code-breaking spot outside London. Gr.5 and older)

31. Threads of Life, A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle by Clare Hunter (This was a fascinating collection of stories of the ways needlework has been used to decorate, communicate, entertain, and challenge people over time, both the folks who did the work (mostly but not exclusively women). 

32. Magic Enough, Poems by Tara M. Stringfellow (I loved this collection of poems by an African-American poet who sees struggle all around for Black women, but finds ways to see magic in the world in Black women through all of it.  Best book of poetry I read this year, well, maybe 2 years.  Even her Acknowledgements section was like a poem.)

33. The Clockwork Universe, Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick (Who would have thought I would have loved a book about 17^th and early 18^th Century scientists, but I did.  The author presents these geniuses as human beings with considerable talent.  Their rivalries and discoveries are fun to read about, and shock, I understood most of their ideas when presented in basic terms for us mere mortals.)

34. The Winds Knows My Name by Isabel Allende (Two stories of children separated from parents come together.  The first is a boy sent to England to get out of Germany.  The other is a girl separated from her mother at the border in 2018.  They ultimately become family for each other.)

35. In Sunshine or In Shadow by Rhys Bowen (In this Molly Murphy Mystery, molly goes to visit her mother-in-law to escape typhoid in NYC.  She makes a side visit to the women’s community where her friends Sid and Gus are spending the summer.  Sid’s family home is not far away, so they go to visit.  While there, a murder is committed.  Molly leads the search for the killer.

36. Radiant by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (Cooper, a 5^th grader, the only Black student in her class until near the end of the year, moves through the year learning about friendship, forgiveness, sisterhood, family, and more.  The story is told through verse.  Gr.3-6 and older)

37. Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders (This is a fictional account of the Black women of the WAC that went to Britain in 1944 to sort mail for the service personnel and their families.  They faced discrimination but also appreciation for their amazing work.  The book follows 6 women, one of them the commanding officer Col. Adams.) 

I know, I know, it’s a lot, but, picking from the 200 or so books from the first half of the year was not easy.  Happy New Year!  I will send the second cluster of best books later this week.  Thanks for reading.

 

THE PLAY’S THE THING

 

By Ruth A. Sheets

December 16, 2025

Watching the news, on TV or online lets us all into a crazy world of folks in power roles in a giant game.  There is a kind of outline, but no script, “Project 2025.”  They have a kind of goal in mind but don’t seem to know what it should look like when finished.  The cast includes a set of players who think they know what their roles should be, but the rest of the cast is not necessarily in agreement.   

A challenge is that no one is clear just who the director is.  There are several candidates, but none of them has the needed skills or talent, but are all jockeying for position. 

In some ways, this is like a role-playing game in which all of us are involved in a quest related to our democracy?  The main characters are rich, white, racist, misogynistic, homo/transphobic, mostly male, and want a society where only folks like themselves have full citizenship, making all decisions, ruling families, the workplace, communities, and governments at all levels.  They have permission from no one, caring nothing for the skills, abilities, knowledge, talents of anyone unless they can use them.  For them, it’s about wealth and power.  The vast majority of the American people are supposed to be NPCs (non-player characters, to be seen and not heard, pawns to be dragged around with the party.  However, the NPCs have one tool or skill they can use when needed, which scares the leads in the cast.

So, meet the cast at this point in the production:

• Cheeto-Cheeks:  He wants to be king.  His brain is slowly drifting away through dementia, but no one around him can mention it on pain of being fired or worse.  He has no talents beyond grifting, but a lot of ambition, and no positive work ethic.
• Little Elon:  a toddler-adult who wants to rule the world.  He has far fewer skills and talents than he thinks, but has an enormous amount of money due to inheritance (rarely mentioned), and the results of investments and other ways he feeds his addiction to money and power. 
• The Unjolly Miller:  He wants to be the Lord High Inquisitor and Public Executioner too.   His hatreds are astronomical.  He shows little facial expression, no concern for anyone (as that would show weakness).  One can imagine him as the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp.
• Whitey Vought:  His partner is The Unjolly Miller although they are often found treading on each other’s territory, trying to outdo each other in the cruelties they perpetrate on others. (Both want to be director.)
• Noem Dog:  she spends a lot of time trying to prove her manhood; it isn’t working, so must do photo ops at every opportunity, which may slow the party.  She has no skills, no talent, but knows how to dress for an occasion.

• Wanton Warrior:  He likes renaming things and spends time doing that instead of actually learning his job, supposedly defending this nation, but prefers committing war crimes.

• Suzie-Q:  She is a manipulator, the whisperer for the party.  She can tell them to do things and they will just do them because they know she has information on them they don’t want shared.  She can quietly order Cheeto around when no one else can.
• Marco Little:  the appointed diplomat who found going along with Cheeto’s expectations is better than real diplomacy.
• Bonded Woman:  She is attached through an umbilical cord to Cheeto Cheeks and is certain she must do everything to protect her baby, kind of like his pseudomommy.  She too has little experience, less skill, but is so excited she gets to do as much harm to the “kingdom” as she can with impunity while Her Baby Cheeto has immunity.
• Mikey Wimp:  His job is to get things done in the party, but alas, he can’t figure out how to do that because he is incompetent and does not realize he is just the guy to be blamed when he is unsuccessful, which is constant.
• Johnny Kingmaker:  He and his band of 5 hoods want to force all the NPCs to obey, no matter what stupid thing they demand or proclaim.  The six of them make up rules, then pronounce them throughout the land.  They decide who will win no matter what is legal.

 Can you imagine this band of misfits on any kind of quest on behalf of this nation?  Any quest is entirely for themselves and those whose incompetence, hatred, ignorance are as powerful as their own. 

 They often forget us NPCs, so if we are careful, strategic, intelligent (which we are), we can stop them.  We need to give them a dungeon to survive so they won’t bother the rest of us as we work to undo the damage they have done and put in place new guardrails to keep a party with actions like theirs from forming again in America.

A DICTATOR DICTATES - WE DO NOT HAVE TO COMPLY!

by Ruth A. Sheets

Yesterday was World AIDS Day.  You probably didn’t know that and were not reminded because Donald Trump decided the United States was not going to commemorate it, as though it doesn’t exist.  I was surprised Trump even knew there was such a thing as World AIDS Day (he probably didn’t).  The cadre of hateful folks around him, Trump’s Toddler Pool spends their time finding ways to get their “boss” to demonstrate their hatreds and his.  Folks like Steve Miller, Russell Vought, JD Vance, mostly rich white men want us to think of AIDS as the gay disease that was around in the 1980s and nothing more. 

Donald Trump and the Pool also want to rewrite American history, science, and medicine to place white men at the center of everything, to dismiss everyone else as just burdens white men have to bear.  They decide which laws they will follow and ignore the rest.  They threaten to “hang” Democrats who remind our military and intelligence communities they are required not to follow illegal orders.  They blast small boats out of the water in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific supposedly because they are transporting drugs (with no proof), even killing survivors, all of which are against American and international law.  The Pool and its “leader” desperately want to be seen as powerful enough to dictate everything to the people of this nation, even what is truth.

Their super rich “friends” like Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and a few others have bought up our media, online, in print, and on air and have been working hard to shape it to whatever story Trump and the Pool want told and with the language they will approve.  Clearly these media owners are getting something for sacrificing their integrity (if they ever had any).  I think it is being “in the room where it happens,” or rather making sure they have a hand in what happens in that room.  For that “presence, they will cover only what Trump (and the Pool want covered, a win-win for them and a lose-lose for the rest of the American people. 

They have dictated that climate change (global warming) is a hoax and threatened Republican members of Congress that they must vote for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” even though there is nothing positive in it for their constituents.  They told Republicans in Congress to cut funding for public broadcasting, libraries, museums, infrastructure programs, mitigation of climate change, and more, whose funding congress had already approved.  In short, I can’t think of a single thing Trump and the Toddler Pool have done since gaining office nearly a year ago.

We the People are not helpless.  We can communicate our opposition to our representatives at all levels and vote for those who have our interests in mind.  We have participated in significant protests, the most recent “No Kings” event brought 7 million people out to say “no” to the dictator would-be-king.  Conservative school boards around the country have been replaced with boards that do not want their curricula and practices dictated by people who are ignorant of nearly everything.  The uninvolved have stepped up to protest cuts in SNAP, Medicaid, unaffordable healthcare, issues which have touched them personally. 

People in our cities have been standing in the way of ICE as the illegal law-enforcement troop drags people from their homes, cars, and off the street  and disappears them into appalling prisons and concentration camps.  People are standing with and for neighbors they didn’t know before.

Workers are demanding unions and not accepting the treatment that current bosses are dishing out.  Young people are demanding better on the job and off.

People of many faiths, ages,  and backgrounds voted for a young mayor, Mamdani,  for NYC, and plan to work for the issues he stands on.  The idea that there could be housing, child care, and public transportation for everyone is spreading.

We must find ways to reach out to people who see the world differently from us and hear about their needs, their dreams, and what keeps them supporting a group of folks who care nothing for them and prove it on a daily basis.  We can’t impact the world view of people if we don’t  understand them, and with understanding, we can encourage them to fight with us for things we have in common, our nation for example!