This from the woman who swore that "Indivisible Greenwich" was a non-partisan organization

madame defarge-Swomley knits a pussy hat

All the hate mail sent my way should be returned to sender.

Indivisible held its third all member meeting on Sunday night at Eastern Middle School Joanna Swomley welcomed a crowd of several hundred, and told them that as a group they are “quite a force” for change.

“We have a president who asserts that the press is the enemy of the people, promotes violence against CNN and journalists, does not condemn attacks on peaceful protesters or minority groups. We have a president who flouts the rule of law, most recently with the outrageous pardon of Joe Arpaio. His administration is dismantling the EPA, civil rights, and voting protections,  consumer protections. The list continues,” she said. “And he emboldens white supremacists, giving way to the significant rise in hate groups and to the bullying that is going on in our schools.”

Swomley said Indivisible, with 6,000 local chapters across the US, is the most viable means to stop Donald Trump’s extreme agenda.

“We Indivisible groups across the country have played a role in this remarkable accomplishment. Eight months in, despite control in both houses of Congress the president’s legislative agenda has been thwarted,” she added.

Swomley said upcoming  priorities will be defending DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), fighting a tax cut bill, possibly healthcare again, and standing against hate.

Joanna Swomley welcomed several hundred people to the third all-member meeting of Indivisible Greenwich. Sept 10, 2017 Photo: Leslie Yager

Indivisible Greenwich’s Nerlyn Pierson said that in Greenwich, “A group of hard right Republicans are trying to take over our school board. The report that they put together in support of charter change specifically states that this, a take over of the Board of Education, would drive an examination of the platform of each party,  perhaps even encourage each party to develop a version of their party’s national education platform – something that neither has been able to do to date. That is going on in our town.”

Swomley said 43 members of Indivisible and MarchOn are running for RTM.

Also, she said, Indivisible supports candidates Drew Marzullo and Howard Richman, as well as Republican Peter Bernstein, who, she said, “Stood against the attempted takeover of the Board of Education and paid a price.

US Senator Murphy introduced Sandy Litvack, who is married to Indivisible’s Joanna Swomley.

“Talking about Disney, I have to tell you two things. One is when people talk about difficulties – about dealing with Hartford. I dealt with the French on the restructuring of Euro Disney! That’s tough,” Litvack said to a chorus of laughter.

“Donald Trump is not on the ballot, but who he is, and how you feel about him is on the ballot, and where candidates stand on that issue is important,” Litvack said. “I stand very clearly. Donald Trump has denigrated the office of the  White House. He is a disgrace and he is unfit to hold the office,” he continued.  “Where my opponent stands, we’ll have to find out.”

“The focus on the mill rate – that’s a myopia. We all love Greenwich and the way to do this is through the efficient management of the town. We have candidates running for the RTM and BET. And if we can turn this town blue, we can deal with the entire quality of life.”

Just in time for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

First Congregational Church, "the oldest church in Greenwich", to host drag queen performance.

That’s right: Greenwich’s oldest church is hosting a drag show.

Framed as a cabaret, drag queens Tobehere and Vod KaStinger will belt out standards and Broadway show tunes for an evening of music and fun.

“I do enjoy a good bit of Sinatra,” Tobehere said.

“Life is a Cabaret!” is the brainchild of Craig Scott Symons, the church’s director of music. His idea has proven popular: An earlier show at 7:30 p.m. sold out weeks ago, and now the second appearance at 10 p.m. is nearly at capacity.

“What’s better than one drag queen? Two,” Symons said. “People are just excited to have something outside the box here.”

Last Sunday, Rev. Richard S. DenUyl, Jr., the church’s senior pastor, gave a sermon entitled “Rainbow God” in preparation for the event. In light of all the sexual assault accusations that have dominated the national news cycle lately, part of the speech slanted toward solemnity, emphasizing the issue of gender inequality and its troubling ramifications.

But it also had a hopeful tone. Through a close reading of “Genesis 1: 26, 27,” as well as other Bible passages, DenUyl made the case that despite how the patriarchy presents the Christian God, he is not singularly male in form. And because the Old Testament claims that God made humanity in his image, he said, we also have elements of both genders inside of us.

He positioned drag queens as a force that puts pressure on the gendered norms we have internalized, and went so far as to say that “what they do is nothing short of ministry.”

“I think it’s funny and it’s playful, but it’s also doing something powerful,” DenUyl told Greenwich Time. “It’s reminding people that we’re more connected than we think.”

Over the phone, DenUyl said that gender stereotypes have an impact on our outlook, especially for men, because they feel the need to perform their gender more than women. In the past, when the Reverend invited Tobehere to sing at staff parties, he watched as a few fathers seemed uncomfortable at first, shocked by an act that some might call provocative or gender-bending. But soon, they eased into the evening.

“They were just, they were freer,” he remembered. “They walked out of there, their step was different.”

[This used to be described as "light in the loafers", but these are different times. Ed]

In “Rainbow God” — which DenUyl said even the older congregants loved, and which inspired several retired men at brunch to openly talk about their “feminine side” — the Reverend emphasized the importance of constant reformation, so that the church’s values continue to evolve with the times. He cited a famous quote by theologian Karl Barth that recommends a Christian have a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other.

I left the First Congo many years ago when they bowdlerized their hymn book by removing all "militant" hims like "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and substituted what were claimed to be Native American ditties. The Indians were animists, and if a Christian church thinks that a paen to rocks and weasels is the moral equivalent of a song of praise to the eternal truth of Christ the savior, then that church has lost its purpose.

Newspapers nothwithstanding,

But I do hope the remaining congregation enjoys getting in touch with its feminine side.

UPDATE: Just to be clear here, it's the trendiness of all this I object to, not the idea that we're all God's children. There's room for (almost) all of us in those many rooms, and there may even be same-sex toilets, but observing the mainstream Christian church decline into a morass of cultural relativism and murky new-speak is ... discouraging.

Geeze, I leave you guys on your own for a couple of days and you blow it!

Congratulations, Honey, you're Third Selectman!

Seems as though the Move On crowd emerged from their tunnels and took over the town. Too bad, but at least you can document this election as the final turning point of Greenwich's decline. The state rounded that corner in 1990, when it imposed an income tax on residents and began eliminating any advantage we had over New York and New Jersey. That new money freed the legislators to double the state payroll and spending, while setting up a multi-billion-dollar pension fund deficit, and the rest will be history.

Greenwich will now almost certainly adopt the huge long-term borrowing local Democrats have advocated so that we can have the things we want now, and pay for them later. Once we break up the local schools, we'll be Stamford, without the charm.

One final thought on the successful efforts of Indivisible Greenwich to take over the government: the group was formed by the wife of our Democrat candidate for First Selectman, after she'd joined the Pussy Hat brigade down at Washington's "Move On" parade. If Mayor DeBlasio's wife had announced the formation of a Soros-backed group, Indivisible New York, would you believe her if she said the group would be non-partisan, and without a political agenda? 

It will take a while for that new agenda to take its toll, but Greenwich as a long term proposition looks dubious from here. 

Unfortunate timing: I'll out of circulation for a week

Gone fishing, and such, with Hugh Glass

I'm off today to a Maine hunting camp which, my Riverside friend, a Maine native, promised me, has neither cellphone nor Internet service. When I accepted his invitation a month ago I had no idea that I was going to spark a flurry of national media attention the week of departure (from Vogue, which is irrelevant, but also the NYT, which, amazingly, still is, over a few posts about deranged Pussy Hats invading our RTM. I committed to the excursion, and I'm delighted to be going, but now I'm sorry I'll be missing the excitement, and also concerned that my newfound enemies will think I've gone into hiding. Not so: I'll be back, and in fact, if I can find an Internet hotspot — surely there's a McDonald's within 20 miles of anywhere in America, even rural, northern Maine — I'll check in on Sunday, when this backward state forbids hunting. 

I'm worried about renegade comments which are bound to come in after the Times' article is published (this weekend?). I assume Vogue's 30 readers have already weighed in, so no problem there, but who knows with the Times? I've seen other sites' comment sections degrease into a hateful stew of vitriol, and I'd prefer than not happen. For now, I'll leave registered users' comments unmoderated, but I'll try to check back in a few days and see how it's going.

If I do have to shut things down, hold those comments, and we'll resume the debate a week from today.

Enjoy the election.

The Official list of Greenwich Indivisible candidates - either it's incomplete, or they badly missed their claim to have attracted "50-60" candidates

Large and small, they want us all: Columbia University students under investigation for "hate crimes"

Those " crimes" are the invitation to conservative speakers to appear on campus.

And on a related, but far lesser matter, this Columbia student yesterday demanded that my blog be taken down:

Greenwich Indivisible - outsiders' money

I'm pretty sure this man doesn't particularly care about REBUILDING the Eastern civic center

Greenwich's Harry Fisher has an interesting letter to the editor out today, detailing the George Soros-funded money coming into Greenwich's, and other municipal elections, to support the "Indivisible" parties. If you still believe that these people have nothing but improvements to Tod's Point on their agenda well, you're naive.

Here's an excerpt, but read the whole thing:

To the Editor:
Non-residents, and their money, have entered local Greenwich politics with a clear objective to influence our election for town offices, and by extension, policy for years to come. In over 30 years of local involvement, I have never witnessed anything like it. If successful, the attack
would have a negative impact on your tax bill.

Hard evidence can be found in filings by the campaign for Sandy Litvack, Democrat for First
Selectman, whose campaign took in 62 percent of contributions through September 30th from non-residents, versus zero for Republican Peter Tesei. We not know how much went to the two parties in town, but my bet is a similar pattern. And all should watch for the next set of reports due this week.

That money is being spent. Make no mistake, these are highly coordinated and expensive efforts utilizing print, pre-recorded robo calls, social media, video and banner ad insertion to your computer and phone, and activists interacting to a high degree. I wish we could follow the money to determine who is paying, and who is being paid, but we do know some things.

I heard this report, and thought exactly the same thing

PJ Media had this posted this morning when I turned on my computer, and I couldn't agree more, both about Trump corrupting the jury pool and the preference for letting the SOB (the driver of the truck, not Trump, necessarily) rot in SuperMax for the next 50 years, isolated 24 hours a day. It's a far crueler punishment than death; so cruel that, if it weren't for the people who are locked in there, I'd think we shouldn't do it. 

Banshee attack

Miss Beth RusselL, Little Bee Graphics, flies home from New Hampshire to Greenwich, male protector in front, to smite the wicked

(Update)

As an aside, I note that, in addition to Miss Russell calling me a "shitbiscuit", which is an agiest term perhaps best directed at her preferred First Selectman candidate Sandy Litvack, also refers to me as a "shitdick", and apparently means that as a term of opprobrium, too. Does she mean to imply that I have recently engaged in anal sex, and if so, does she object to that? Why? Is the young lady offended by just homosexual sex, or anal sex in general, and again, why? It was my understanding that peoplepersons of Russell's generation were open, so to speak, to all varieties of sexual experience, and at the very least, don't condemn (male) homosexuals' sex practices. Am I wrong? Should I abandon my attempts to join those wild, crazy dorm parties I've dreamed about?

I'm disappointed in you, Beth. I think you need to return to your college for reindoctrination, because you seem to be reverting to your staid, conventional Greenwich roots. Sad.

What's all this I hear about "speaking truth to power"?

Oooh, don't say that!

Over at greenwich Free Press (no link, by my choice; I the to give its publisher traffic, in light of her regularly calling me everything from a racist to a homophobe, to an anti—Semite, all because I disagree with her political views), a Mr. James Waters has posted an endorsement of Sandy Litvack. Water's letter is well written, and he makes good points in favor of his position (one I disagree with, mostly, but so what?), but he twice references Litvack as someone who "speaks truth to power". example:

On November 7, I will vote for Sandy Litvack for First Selectman and Peter Bernstein for Board of Education. Litvack is a seasoned and non-partisan executive, a former Vice Chairman of Disney, who speaks truth to power and brings fresh ideas to government.

Litvack worked for Walt Disney, so who did he speak "truth to power" to, Snow White? Certainly not Miramax or its chief executive Harvey Weinstein, and certainly not to anyone holding political power: he's been in town eleven years, and voted in municipal elections once in all that time.

There might be a good reason to vote for Litvack: proof that Greenwich voters aren't ageists, for instance, or, as I mentioned in a comment in the last post, pure entertainment value, but Litvack is hardly a profile in courage.