Tag: Russia

The Democrats are Losing the Plot

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

There is no more dangerous assumption in this election than Joe Biden is too old. There are too many problems inherent in changing horse midstream, particularly since Kamala Harris is the logical choice should the Democrats drop him from the ticket. She represents everything racists hate, which would only make the NASCAR vote bigger than the YASCAR’s…………. or at the very least, close in an election where it shouldn’t be close. If you are on the “Biden’s too old” train, you are not seeing the forest for the trees. People don’t like changing presidents in times of war. They just don’t. Biden will likely squeak by with a win just because even though we’re not at war, we’re in a war mindset. We are emotionally involved in Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine.

Let me say for the record that my heart is for both sides in the Middle East. I hate the Israeli government, not Palestine or the Jewish people. To conflate hate for Benjamin Netanyahu as antisemitism is going against the wishes of most Israelis and Palestinians, who live side by side ruled by a government that does not give a shit about its own people. If they die, they die. Netanyahu doesn’t give a shit if he “wins” when he bombs integrated neighborhoods. Antisemitism is not the issue here, Dude. Netanyahu has decided that in terms of war, he’s the one who knocks. Palestine has rocket launchers and rocks. Israel is armed with nuclear weapons. it’s not a fair fight, and Netanyahu gives absolutely no fucks.

If Trump is elected, we stand the very real chance of Ukraine not being able to stand up to Russia anymore, because if Trump extorted Zelenskyy once, he’ll do it again. That’s because he’s already gotten away with it once, the most moronic thing about Trump being a sane candidate in my eyes. That’s because for the whole Trump presidency, the GOP showed its true colors:

Jed: Theirs is the party of inclusion.
Charlie: That’s what they tell me.

For the uninitiated, it’s a conversation in “The West Wing.” Jed is the Democratic president, and Charlie is his body man (and at one point was almost assassinated for dating the president’s very white, very ginger daughter). It’s tongue in cheek because Charlie is black. The GOP’s true colors are showing because they’re afraid of everything progressive. No historically intelligent Republican would take all this lying down. No self-respecting one would, either. I often wonder if William F. Buckley, John McCain, and Ronald Reagan are rolling in their graves. If we’re going to talk about the crimes of the GOP, even Richard Nixon is like, “I’m out.” He broke into Democratic headquarters (or was the mastermind, anyway). Now, Trump is making him look fucking adorable.

I think people are greatly underestimating how good Trump is at being a Russian asset, because he doesn’t have to come out and say he supports Putin no matter what he does. Putin impresses him and feeds his ego, and he gives away information freely, even classified because it’s not that he’s willing to sell secrets. It’s that he’s genuinely too stupid to remember what’s classified and what’s not…. or at least, that’s how he comes across to me. He’s a Useful Idiot, not a proud FSB operative. We are going to stumble into Russia getting whatever they want just because Trump is impressed.

Meanwhile, the United States is trying to keep Ukraine sovereign. That won’t happen under Trump, because he’ll play both sides. He’ll support the country that gives him the most, because all his relationships are transactional. At this point, we are not talking about two candidates that are the same. On its surface, the election looks like two old guys, but one of them is not like the other. We’ve already been warned by Russia about “getting involved.” So, do we fold to that pressure by electing Trump?

Let’s not.

When people talk about a Trump presidency, they generally have either forgotten or never knew how bad it was. Trump didn’t choose the best and the brightest around him. He only hired people that would toe the company line, which is how Trump does business. Hire people who never disagree with him, then don’t pay them.

This election is not about the candidates, but the baggage that comes with them in terms of staff. You are not voting for a party, you’re voting to keep things the same. Sometimes, it’s better to keep the devil at bay.

I mean, maybe there were only two Corinthians. We weren’t there. Not every sermon is a hit.

Strawberry Letter #23

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Share what you know about the year you were born.

The number one hit by The Brothers Johnson in the title was at the top of the charts the day I was born. When the funk bass starts, and you move; if you have heard Louis start that vamp it’s still going on in your head right now……. so addictive that you might have to find another earworm to get rid of this one.

(Small aside- if you are a Louis Johnson fan (bassist), Thundercat is his heir apparent.)

I was delivered on September 10th, 1977, so for most of what happened during that year I was only marginally present. Jimmy Carter had just been inaugurated as president the previous January (election in ’76, the first presidential election since Richard Nixon resigned). As far as I can gather, it was not one of those years that had a huge historical event. It was a year in which we were recovering from being led by a criminal, which has no bearing on today.

There were smaller accomplishments.

The first official flight of the Concorde took off from JFK after having had several successful test flights. It cut travel time to London in half. Interestingly enough, cutting the flight time in half wasn’t the end goal. As I grew, the Concorde got better. Its fastest speed run from the US to the UK was 2:52:59, and then it was discontinued (thank God, for environmental reasons, yet still sad…… I don’t know why. I wasn’t buying tickets).

That wasn’t the only advance in business, though, because 1977 was one of the years in which personal computer companies were popping up everywhere. Instead of a mainframe and dumb terminals (like at the office), you could get a fully functioning machine that fit on your desk.

Kids, I’m taking a moment out to say that because things have changed so much, I am not sure that you’ll have a reference for this, so I’ll explain.

Before the personal computer, at an office you’d have what was called the “server room,” and every desktop monitor was reflecting what was going on in the server room. None of the desktop terminals functioned independently, similar to today, when it is impossible to use some apps without being connected to the Internet and for the very same reason- the processing is done on the web servers, not on your local device….. which is why a solid network connection is every bit as vital as the CPU/RAM/graphics card/etc. But back then, there was no “internet,” there was the intranet. The server you were connected to was physically located near you, because everything was a wired connection.

I do not think that the Internet would be what it is today if we hadn’t learned how to pipe data through a wireless connection. I believe this was possible because our drive to be wireless all the time came from internet connectivity through your cell. Having a basic web browser on a dumb phone led to everyone being connected, all the time, for better or for worse. But in 1977, we couldn’t see it coming yet. We were satisfied with creating documents and saving them to a floppy disk for easy carrying….. until you bent it…… and then, cell phones only supported calling. Short Messaging System (SMS) had not been invented.

We could not see the future, but how computers operate in 2023 is merely an evolution, it is not wildly different from anything we did back then. What we learned at networking an office turned out to be instrumental in how we network the whole world at once.

In terms of the world at the time, things were tense with the USSR, but in different ways than they are today…. the biggest reason is that the Soviet Republic fell apart, and now there’s only Russia. Any dreams they had of world dominance went with the republic’s collapse. They didn’t have the money to be big players anymore, and honestly, I don’t know that they have it now. As with American leaders, they make it look good….. but who knows what cards Putin is really holding?

(The answer is Hilary Clinton, btw. When the former Secretary of State to the most powerful nation in the world says Putin is masterminding our demise by having a Russian UI in the White House, you believe her. I’m sure your next question is “what’s a UI?” Useful Idiot- the stooge planted in a country who doesn’t do anything outright evil to show they’re being traitorous, just makes mistakes that are bad for American interests because they’re being manipulated by a foreign state. When we elected Trump, we learned that Russia thought they were getting a UI, then even they were surprised with 45 because there was so much emphasis on the “I,” not so much with the “U.” You get what you pay for……… I’m sure Putin thought it was marvelous when 45 went into CIA’s house and ripped them a new asshole. I didn’t. “Say that to Martin Freeman’s FACE.”)

Speaking of Hillary, I don’t know what she was doing in 1977, but I do know that it was near the beginning of of Hillary becoming a one-person monolithic idea of who a president’s partner should be; as such, it was the beginning of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” But the 70s would have been the beginning of social justice awareness, because back then was when the emphasis on social justice really took hold with white people. It’s not that there weren’t white people interested in social justice before, it’s that American Christianity divided in half, and the horseshoe of extremities divided into Evangelical white supremacy apologists and “the woke.” If white supremacy was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for everyone.

Except there is no way for Jesus to be a white supremacy apologist because the image painted of him in every white church in America looks like Jesus was the only French baby born in the Middle East, and at that time, it would have been a severe anomaly because people didn’t generally travel that far, first of all, and second it’s impossible for him to be white as as a descendent of Jesse and David. It was part of Matthew’s whole schtick. He was the captain in charge of “see? I told you he’s the Messiah. I’ve followed quite a few.” Kidding, but not inaccurate. Matthew focused on proof…. not of Jesus’ divinity as the actual son of God, but proving to Jews that he (waves hand) was the Messiah they were looking for.

But in the end, it wasn’t proof that mattered. It was “how do we appropriate Jesus’ culture and religion to fit our justified racism and inequality?” Thus, the Democrats eschewed religion and the cancer of racism spread into the Republican Party at an alarming rate, because they didn’t have to believe racism was wrong.

That’s not limited to the US, by the way. In the 1970s, they were also struggling with this very idea in South Africa. As Trevor Noah has pointed out, when South Africa came up with apartheid, they researched all the ways you could be racist, and took the worst of each system and applied it. Guess what? Most of the really evil stuff came from us.

If you remember nothing else about South Africa, it’s that Jim Crow laws are directly responsible for apartheid being implemented and maintained, because we built the system that had the largest impact on apartheid policies. So, the cancer that is Evangelical white supremacy spread and made South Africa malignant, too.

Even Thai people applaud Ho=Ho great job.

It was Barry Goldwater who warned us, and we didn’t like AuH2O, so we didn’t listen and now we’re fucked:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

Want to hear something really interesting? Goldwater was a progressive Republican, the people most lonely at parties. You cannot convince me otherwise if he also said, “you don’t have to be straight to be in the military. You have to be able to shoot straight.” Millions of gay men have said, “I can do that.” Despite it, “those preachers” became the voice of Christianity and people like Jimmy Carter, Barry Goldwater, and me are left out of the conversation.

I was telling a Facebook group who was, at the time, coming down hard on Evangelical colonialism through mission trips. I said, “I am a Jimmy Carter Democrat. I know that mission trips on the whole are problematic, but I’m a Jimmy Carter Democrat. I didn’t talk about faith, I helped build them a house.” I got emotionally pummeled into the ground. Par for the course. American Christianity as a whole does not like Jimmy Carter’s version of Christianity unless it’s a meme of him and not the rest of us.

Stephen Colbert said it better than the rest of us, the question we should have asked ourselves before we let the Republican Party become a theocracy:

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.

So, if there’s anything good that came out of 1977, it’s that I got the liberal version of Christianity in the Methodist church…………….

Just like Hillary Clinton.

Random Thoughts and Feelings

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 7 Comments

I already did the writing prompt for today, and it didn’t really bring up anything great for me. I don’t know that this entry will, either, but I have a lot on my mind and figured this is the one place where I can just ramble about nothing to see what happens.

It’s 7C/74F with a 44 percent chance of rain in Washington today. The District is gorgeous when it rains. Drivers are no good at it, but the storms themselves are strong. I might even get to see a few lightning bolts, which means either run down to the sunroom when it starts raining or hide in my bedroom. The storms look beautiful through the skylights right up until they don’t. I’m not generally scared of thunderstorms, but there have been a few that really haven’t been pleasant. I’m used to it, though, because we have the same type flash flooding in Houston that we have here. It’s better to be entertained by storms, because we of the Mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast are only given one commandment…. Thou shalt deal.

The carafe on our Cuisinart coffee machine broke, so Hayat got us a whole new system (I don’t know why, it’s just cool). I am way behind the eight ball on this whole pod system thing, and Keurig is the biggest brand name for them, but this Cuisinart has a regular-sized carafe on one side and a place to make single mugs of coffee/tea on the other. I thought I would miss not having the hot water heater, but I don’t because I can just put Stash tea leaves in the pod instead of coffee. It’s every bit as fancy as the one I used while I was house sitting for Thomas, it just doesn’t have Bluetooth to be able to “order” from upstairs. It’s ok, though, because the coffee maker will only do about three tall mugs’ worth before the water needs refilling.

I’m currently brewing Amazon’s dark roast, and I have to say it’s pretty tasty. I haven’t tried the disposable pods because I know they would solve the ADHD tax of having to clean out the coffee maker and terrible for the environment. I think I’ll just keep buying my own when I can find the best brands available for the money on my own. If I’m shopping at Starbucks, I like Komodo Dragon best. If I’m shopping on Amazon, I have several choices. I lean toward store brand dark roast, but Cafe Bustelo is just as cheap and that’s what they use at all my favorite Cuban restaurants. My only rule is that I do not prefer light and medium roasts, but I will drink them if that’s the only thing available.

I really like coffee because it’s so comforting to wrap my hands around a mug. The one I’m currently drinking from is copper. I can’t say that it makes the coffee taste better, but it feels good in my hand. When I buy coffee mugs for myself, they’re usually large with a big handle so that the mug doesn’t feel unbalanced. Nothing feels worse to me than a mug where the handle isn’t big enough to support the weight of the cup.

It’s a sensory issue thing, just like Bombas socks and American Giant hoodies.

I’m also taking a lot of acid reducer because I don’t want to live without spicy food. It’s really the thing that’s handling my congestion, because even with taking Sudafed PE, it’s not completely knocking it out. As a singer, it bothers me when my entire facial mask is full and I can’t breathe, because allergies are the quickest path to laryngitis when your throat is so raw from having to deal with the crap invading your face.

My favorite thing right now is a scrambled egg sandwich with butter and hot sauce.

With all the talk about Hawaiian pizza lately, I bought one just as a vehicle for ghost pepper wing sauce. I got extra cheese and shredded parmesan to bake on top. Maybe that will be dinner today, but I still have some butterscotch pancakes left over from making a batch last weekend. Easier to heat up something I’ve already made, and these pancakes are divine. The butterscotch chips that end up near the surface melt into the butter, and it’s decadent. It’s cake that tastes like a pudding cup. Millions of school children can’t be wrong. 😉

I am all about trying new things these days, obviously. I found a meme the other day that reminded me of Zac….. “remembering the day I kissed a beautiful twink in Brighton because she thought I was a lesbian.” My comment on the meme is that my partner is male and that is our exact description. It makes me laugh out loud that when I dress in what I call “girl clothes” or “ho clothes,” we look depressingly heterosexual. When I’m all dyked out in a baseball cap and jeans, it’s a whole twink/bear mood…… except Zac is clean shaven.

It’s okay that sometimes we look depressingly heterosexual some days, though, because there are days when I just feel depressingly heterosexual. It’s a whole mood. It doesn’t have anything to do with my orientation. It has everything to do with playing into the well-ingrained enculturation of heteronormativity. But Zac and I can share that without it being weird. If I feel strange, I can just tell him that.

Besides, he gives me street cred when I’m writing about intelligence because no one trusts a reporter, but everyone trusts unconfirmed chatter. 😉

However, none of the stuff I write about is unconfirmed. Zac cannot tell me things directly, but he can point me in the right direction. If I find news articles that back him up, I’ll talk about it here. If I don’t, it’s something we need to keep between us until I can verify he’s right. It has nothing to do with Zac giving me information he isn’t supposed to give, it’s that if I write about intelligence here, I don’t want to spread misinformation.

I don’t link to news stories, generally, but my facts are easily verifiable when I use them because I’m talking about current events.

For instance, we’re talking about the Republican party intentionally trying to elect a criminal worthy of a high crimes and misdemeanors charge, a clear and present danger to the United States both foreign and domestic. You cannot let Hillary Clinton’s wisdom, former SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON’s opinion because she was in the room, fall by the wayside. That two-bit sheister is at least a Russian Useful Idiot if not a full-on asset. There has to be a reason that Trump was comfortable extorting Zelenskyy, and now he’s a hero to most Americans, blackmail forgotten. Don’t let him forget.

The Republicans need to face the fact that if they reelect Trump, they’re going to sell Ukraine up the river if the conflict isn’t over by then.

Also, if Trump is a UI, that means we have no idea how many Russian intelligence officers are affecting American voters through the cunning use of other people they can sucker into working for them, unwittingly or not. I do not think that Putin wants war with the United States. I think he has a vendetta and wants to take us over from the inside. We have not done a great job stopping it from happening. There are probably a thousand people just like “The Americans” embedded in Washington alone.

Just like we probably have a thousand case officers on the ground in Ukraine.

I have said this before, but Zelenskyy is my age, a creative, and absolutely brilliant. I have a dog in this fight because I will be crushed if anything happens to him. It would be tantamount to killing Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Martin Freeman all in one.

“Servant of the People” is just one of the reasons Putin is as dangerous as Trump. If you embarrass either “leader” on television, it will not go well for you.

I’m not asking for things to be perfect around here. I just think that we’re trading national security the longer Republicans hold onto the myth that Trump is capable. He is. He is capable of turning the United States into one of the shithole countries he proclaims to hate, all by being tightly controlled by the Kremlin. Does this sound like anything a SANE Republican would do given the hysteria toward Communism in the 80s?

Trump is not even capable to the level of a Reagan or a Bush. That’s why if he’s reelected, he’ll be perfectly happy to let other people run the United States, no matter what it costs. They don’t even have to live here.

But trust me, they do.

Everything going through my head feels random, but at the same time, my feelings are focused on world issues and I’m not lost in my own problems. I am done ruminating about a whole bunch of things that have made room.

Perhaps it’s good that my feelings truly are random, because they stop me from hyperfocusing and losing myself.

I mean, if I have a movie star name, I should at least grow into it.

😉

Empathy

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

What positive emotion do you feel most often?

For people like me (INFJ, highly sensitive, neurodivergent), empathy is a river of everpresentlovingkindness and a waterfall of tears. My mirror neurons go off for all people who struggle. Because of the negative effects that come with ADHD and Bipolar disorder, sometimes that part of me seems dammed, but it’s not. My focus has turned away, but the emotions are still there. I can’t turn them off, especially with ADHD, because there are 57 channels (and nothing’s on).

I try to focus on empathy, though, because if I didn’t I would recede into myself. For instance, my love of real world intelligence comes from more than one place. I lost a family member in Somalia who was a helicopter pilot for C/DIA, so when I see the stars on the wall at Langley, I know one of them is a personal memorial for me to visit should I get the chance. Another is spies in popular culture, but not necessarily fictional characters. “The Courier” is a true story, as is “Argo.” But those I watched as an adult. As a kid, I was introduced to James Bond and that was a love affair all its own. I didn’t want to marry James Bond. I wanted to be him.

I think that’s because I didn’t connect it that I would have to move to England to do that. I love CIA because I’m an American and feel proud of us, but I am equally obsessed with MI-6 (and the Tom Clancy level of detail that John Le Carre puts into his books). My favorite stories involve collaboration between the two institutions, which I’m sure happens all the time in real life, but isn’t reflected on screen all that often. The reason I think that is because I met a spy from London that was basically “on loan” to us for a task force on human trafficking. I thought that was infinitely cool and became interested in other countries’ intelligence agencies as well. KGB/GRU is fascinating even though I don’t particularly have a fondness for Russia itself.

I am focused on the Vietnam War era of CIA because I am indirectly writing a book about it… but the Cold War is a close second. Most of the retired spies I’ve met were active in the 80s and early 90s, steeping me in stories of East German and Russian operations and cute little Trabants. Regarding my book, it’s actually a platonic love story between two men who are trying to prevent the war from happening altogether. I do not know how the novel is going to end. That’s the best part. I want to write this book because I want to read it.

I’ll put a picture of a Trabant at the end because they’re not popular cars anymore and you simply must see one. To me, they look like pets. When Chevron and Pixar created their cartoon cars, they really missed the boat. A talking Trabant would be every bit as cute to me as a puppy.

The fact that Zac has worked in intelligence since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is not lost on me and is in fact extraordinarily meaningful. That’s because historically, queer people haven’t been allowed to be spies. It’s not because the US was actively trying to be homophobic….. I mean, they were, but there’s an extremely valid reason behind it that I cannot ignore. If they were caught, it was a short path to blackmail. Either come work for us or we’ll blow up your whole life. I don’t have any anger or bitterness against CIA for not being able to hire me, either, for a similar reason.

If I was caught, the first thing that would be done in another country is taking away my psych meds, even if they were available there. That’s because they automatically think that making me unstable is the best way to get me to talk. Joke’s on them. I wouldn’t talk, but I would be a rage-filled chihuahua (I’m 5’2). Physical withdrawal from an SSRI or mood stabilizer lasts weeks. I have a feeling that wouldn’t go well for me. It’s discrimination, but also empathy. They’re not going to allow me to be in a situation where someone takes away my medication.

Knowing that part of it comes from being a fan of both “Homeland” and “Jack Ryan.” Carrie Mathison did get made and had her psych meds denied. My bipolar disorder is far less severe than hers, but it drove the point home. James Greer was sneaking heart medication, I believe. Different drug, same issue.

It’s devastating because I really would have liked to work on the whole world’s problems at once. I’m just not dumb enough to lead the crusade in a fight to get me hired because for as much as it sucks, I agree with them. The problem, to me, is not getting hired. It’s what happens after you join. I have trouble believing that a case officer will never have to supplement or balance their brain chemicals at all during their entire career. CIA is so massive that there are plenty of jobs where you don’t have to travel at all, but if you are an operative, there’s probably not a chance in hell you’d take one.

That’s because spy agencies are hyped up by the movies to an enormous degree, and yet when I read true life spy stories, I realize that there’s a lot of the same nervous energy I felt before service at a restaurant. I’d be standing in front of a table daydreaming, prepping and nervous before the pop. Feeding hundreds of people is also an operation, and so many nights I could have used an ex-fil. 😉 If I was a current operative, a great place for me would be embedded with World Central Kitchen. I don’t think CIA likes to embed people in humanitarian organizations if they don’t have to do so, because it affects the reputation of the charity. For instance, you will never see an operative disguised as a priest or a Peace Corp officer. That being said, I think CIA should basically be Jose Andres’ right hand, because there’s no one more invisible to the rest of the world than cooks and waitstaff.

I could be The Little Gray Man because I’m just “the help.” What the fuck do I know? Meanwhile, I can learn everything without saying anything. I don’t even have to ask any questions; I can give them enough rope to hang themselves.

But it’s not in the interest of anything other than empathy. Being able to stop horrific things from happening is a worthy cause. I would love to work on saving the people of Ukraine, or perhaps saving women and girls from the Taliban. If I could pick, it would be Ukraine because I don’t necessarily want to work where it’s 110 in the shade. I grew up in Houston, and still technically live in the South. “Dry heat” only helps so much. MENA (State designation for Middle East North Africa) is a giant sandbox where the sun is actively trying to kill you. Poland sounds nice this time of year compared to that. That being said, it wouldn’t matter where I was placed based on geography. I’d just like a job where I actually felt capable. I don’t know which problem in the world would make me feel that way.

But here’s what I do know.

Jose Andres went to Ukraine/Poland out of the same empathy I would.

If you have the means, please donate to World Central Kitchen, and if you’re local, take every chance you can get to throw money in his piggy bank. Zaytinya is amazing down to the French fries.

There are more ways to love the world than just trying to stop bad things from happening. Sometimes you need to actively support the good.

If we can use intelligence to stop wars, we save lives by not putting soldiers in harm’s way. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, we averted nuclear war due to several people. Some of them were Russian assets who gave us invaluable information without Khrushchev knowing what cards Kennedy was holding, and and one submarine officer that pulled a Denzel Washington on Gene Hackman.

Now the theme to “Crimson Tide” is playing in my head.

So, when you think of my empathy, make sure it includes people I will never, ever meet. My heart is big enough to love them all.

This is My Song

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Today I was very surprised that Bryn told me she loved Finland. Full stop. She didn’t get it from me…….. and is going to adopt Finnish Independence Day with me. Here’s a breadcrumb for the people who already know this story. It’s on December 6th.

It’s so stupid and yet it works. Believe me, she is not adopting Finnish Independence Day just to share something I like. Nope. She loves it for the same reason I do, because when we write our stories together, they fit like holding hands, which is very interesting in and of itself. I’ve written about it before, so let’s just not go there. It’s not relevant anymore, and it’s too deep for today. I want to focus on something else. Basically, being a Finn for a day helps me not think about something else that needs to stay walled off, because I’ve already had that exorcism and feel peaceful about it….. but not invincible. Triggers happen.

I have a long sleeve gray t-shirt that has the outline of Finland on it, so I have something supportive to wear that day. It is my armor. I laugh to myself when I read Jesus saying “it is finished,” because to my mind that’s a typo.

I don’t think I’ve ever said that before…….. about something being too deep for today. However, the weather is miserable and I don’t want to help it out.

When we get the pennies, we’re out of here. At least for a little while. We need to stand on the steps of the “outdoor living room” in Helsinki, with all the military bands and choirs and the blue and white candles and the lights and EVERYTHING. I’ve just told her be prepared not to want to come home. It’s the happiest country in the world, and we’ll be there in December, so if that’s not a road test I don’t know what is. I don’t mean this December. I’m just holding onto the dream of doing it *someday.* I want to save up my pennies because there’s a chef I will do some shady shit to meet. Hell yeah, reindeer pizza. Plus, I have developed a soft spot for salmiakki (sp?). The other plus is that most Finns speak English, so we wouldn’t have to be fluent in Suomi unless we just wanted to be sort of impressive. Why would white girls speaking Suomi be special IN FINLAND. 😛 It would blow their minds to hear us in our Oregon and Texas accents, because it would only be when we switched to English that people would realize something is afoot at the Circle K.

An additional bonus is that we’ll get to see what used to be a part of Russia without ACTUALLY HAVING TO GO THERE. I am seriously unimpressed with Russia and geeked out over Finland. I watched a documentary on a few of the epic battles. Keep in mind these people basically live in Hoth, okkkkkk. So, they played to their strengths. White camo. Skis. Bazinga.

If I was Russia, I’d be pretty pissed that a country full of skiers fucked up my program, too. But they deserved it, just like they deserve Zelenskyy handing them their asses.

Since conversation about Finland invariably leads to conversation about Ukraine given world events, I also told Bryn about “Servant of the People,” the show that launched Z’s career. He created some amazing people that I can’t wait to spend more time with, even if it’s just watching the first season again.

Maybe I’ll ask Zac if he wants to watch an episode. We’re getting together later and it seems like a show he would watch. I’m not sold on it for tonight, but I do think he would think it’s funny. The pilot is a masterpiece. For the uninitiated, here’s the basic plot.

Ukraine has ranked voting. That’s the first thing you need to know.

The second is that Zelenskyy’s character is a history teacher. The day before the election, one of his kids films him going off on a rant about the government and what it should be doing, and doesn’t see a kid filming him, who promptly posts it on YouTube. Oblivious, Zelenskyy goes to bed. The kids have registered him as a candidate, and he’s in the bathroom when the Secret Service arrives to pick him up.

Every bit…. EVERY bit as funny as “The Office.” For instance, Zelenskyy says that he needs to go to the mall to get a CD for his niece. The Secret Service says they’ll take care of it. They can’t find the CD, so they just go and pick up the band.

Life happens when you’re doing something else. Through comedy, Zelenskyy absolutely filets Putin. I have no illusions about the fact that Putin’s ego probably helped cause all this if my blog is any indication. Zelenskyy embarrassed him on television, so he deserves to die.

Imagine what Trump would do if there were no laws preventing him from something like starting a war because someone embarrassed him on television. I’m surprised he didn’t do it while he had the chance. All of his other enemies were merely people who didn’t agree with them, and the facts were on their side.

I imagine Trump being Putin’s confidante, where they can talk about all the ways in which the world is just so unfair to them.

Maybe they’d be happier if they celebrated Finnish Independence Day. It worked for me.

50 Things You’ve (Probably) Never Been Asked

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Hat tip to Martina for the writing prompt. 🙂

1. What is the color of your toothbrush?

It’s black & red, but I need a replacement soon. Stay tuned.

2. Name one person who made you smile today:

Bryn, who said she was sending me birthday presents in the mail (my birthday was 10 September). I love mail.

3. What were you doing at 8 a.m.?

Talking to my sister on the phone. Sometimes we talk during her commute.

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Drinking coffee with cinnamon & soy milk and talking to my new housemate. I’d tell you all about the conversation, but it wasn’t that interesting. If it had been, this entire entry would be about it instead.

5. What is your favorite candy bar?

I’m not really a candy bar person, although I do like Zero. Right now I am all about licorice allsorts. I ordered the original from Geo. Bassett & Co., Ltd. for my birthday and I just sat there and ate them until I felt fat…. and then I ate some more.

6. Have you ever been to a strip club?

Several, but it’s not a turn-on. I have to love the person to be attracted to them. There was a strip club across the street from my apartment in Portland that I used to go to for a drink occasionally, because it was within walking distance of my house. But I didn’t sit where you could see the women. There was a closed off bar section that was really fancy and the bottles were back-lit with neon. I didn’t even know something that cool existed in my neighborhood, and to this day I’m not sure why I went in the first place. I’m sure it was originally someone else’s idea and I just went with it, but I went back because it was a cool place to hang and no driving afterwards.

There is also a famous vegan strip club in Portland that I went to for another lesbian’s birthday party. I ended up sitting outside for most of it, but honest to God I loved the food, particularly the sloppy joes and mac & cheese. The part of the show that I saw, I liked, though. It wasn’t just women looking bored and dancing to music, it was acrobatics that defied the laws of physics, like Cirque Du Soleil but naked. Not only that, there were no French existentialist clowns. For that reason alone, 10/10. Highly recommend.

7. What is the last thing you said aloud?

I can’t remember exactly, but I was trying to get out of the conversation with my roommate so I could go back upstairs and enjoy my coffee quietly.

8. What is your favorite ice cream?

Every flavor I try is my new favorite, but I have a special spot in my heart for the banana/vanilla swirl soft-serve at Florian Fortescue’s in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. My dad, sister, and I got different flavors to try, and I think that was the winner out of all of them. Now that I’ve been eating a lot of plant-based frozen stuff, I like “ice cream” made out of almond milk that has almonds in it….. really ties the dessert together.

9. What was the last thing you had to drink?

Coffee…. are you even paying attention?

10. Do you like your wallet?

I love it, and I haven’t seen one like it, so if I find one, I need to buy it because this one will wear out. It has a clear pocket on the front that I’m sure was originally for an ID, but I put my Metro card in it so I don’t have to take it out to swipe. The only thing I don’t like about my wallet, and this is a small gripe, is that it has a money clip on the outside that makes it uncomfortable to put in my back pocket.

11. What was the last thing you ate?

Extra, extra Hot Tamales.

12. Have you bought any new clothing items this week?

Does a new clear protector for my Apple watch count?

13. The last sporting event you watched?

Franklin, one of my housemates, is a rabid soccer fan, so I watched a game for a few minutes with him, but I can’t remember who was playing.

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

If I’m buying it while I’m out, it’s hard to find but I love cinnamon-glazed. I also love caramel-glazed and cheese corn mixed together, which is much more widely available. If I’m making it at home, I pop low calorie butter-flavored and then spray Pam on it to get turmeric and All-Purpose seasoning to stick (the more garlic, the better).

15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to?

Well, I use FB Messenger a hell of a lot more than texting because I can respond on any of my devices. It was to Dan, confirming our birthday plans for Tuesday.

16. Ever go camping?

Once. For me, the line about only wearing long underwear in your sleeping bag was the worst piece of advice ever. I finally got up around 4:30 and put on every piece of clothing in my suitcase. I would probably enjoy it more at a lower elevation where it’s not so cold. I was on Mt. St. Helen’s, which to me was freezing even in the summer.

17. Do you take vitamins daily?

Not always, but I do take an iron pill daily because I donate platelets and your iron level has to be above 12.5. Multivitamins give me terrible gastrointestinal distress, so I limit my intake…. but sometimes I need them because I am not the best eater on the planet.

18. Do you have a tan?

As Jim Gaffigan said, “I am what you would call ‘indoorsy.'” I tan vicariously through my friends who do that sort of thing. I think I’ve only tanned a few times in my life, and that was from living in Houston/Galveston. The most serious tan I ever had was spending weeks outdoors. I went to Mexico on a mission trip, then spent a week at choir camp, then three weeks at marching band practice before school started. Marching band practice in Houston is akin to signing up for a three bedroom, two bathroom condo in hell, except hotter. Who was it that said given the choice, they’d live in hell and rent out Texas? Same.

19. Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza?

I can’t. I eat pizza every Friday night in memory of my mother, who started the tradition when Lindsay and I were young. Besides, Argo, Aaron, & Dana would be so metaphysically disappointed (I’ll link to the entries, but if you got those jokes without clicking on the link, you are an OG “Fanagan”).

20. Do you drink soda with a straw?

There aren’t many “always” and “never” questions in this life, but here’s one of them. I never use a straw if I’m sitting down at a table, but I will always use one on the go. I am down with both the reusable and plant-based plastic straws, and I am so proud that my McDonald’s (don’t know if it’s a national thing) has switched to the latter.

21. What did your last text message say?

“Leslie, your Rx order is ready. Get it delivered!” I get wigged because they don’t offer delivery in my area and it irritates me that I get the possibility of delivery with every message and the disappointment of reality at least three times a month.

22. What are you doing tomorrow?

Finally, I have something exciting to say on the topic!

  1. Drink coffee and be awesome.
  2. Find something cool to do until 8:00 PM. I’m thinking of going to the National Gallery of Art, because I just learned today that they have a Van Gogh room, and I didn’t get nearly enough “time with him” at the Musée D’Orsay. I’ve always said that if I ever go back to Paris, I would like to spend an entire day there, staring at Van Gogh paintings while writing so that my crazy mixes with his crazy and we’ll see what “comes out of us.” I would be lying if I said Doctor Who had nothing to do with this (truly memorable trying to not freak out with joy at seeing The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise for real). By the way, none of the sunflower paintings say “Amy.” I checked. Twice. Also, as far as I know, Bill Nighy does not actually work there. I could be wrong.
  3. Meet up with Dan for outrageous desserts at Tryst. You might have heard of it during the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy scandal. Not why we’re going there, but when Dan suggested it, I realized I’d walked past it but had never been in, so it’s not NOT why we’re going there……….
  4. Curl up with a good book. Right now I am in the middle of Three Women, Blink, and War and Peace. That last one may sound ambitious, but after reading The Moscow Rules, I decided it was appropriate (and only 99 cents for the Kindle version with amazing commentary). I wanted to go back and read Tolstoy’s take on Russian history having started it in high school and never finishing. This time around, I have learned that the Russians thought Napoleon was every bit the fool and tyrant that over half the country thinks our current president is now (for reference years in the future, I’m talking about Donald Trump).
  5. Eventually fall asleep, but there’s no telling when because it depends on how engrossed I am in reading.

23. Look to your left, what do you see?

An empty McDonald’s cup that I need to refill with green tea, all of my medications, and my iPhone.

24. What color is your watch?

It changes at least four times a week, because I have an Apple Watch that makes it way too easy to slip the bands out. Today it is hot pink with a black & white Minnie Mouse face. I have a red leather strap that I wear the most often, with the classic color Mickey Mouse face. Today, Minnie is in grayscale because she is also classic colors and I needed her to coordinate with my choice of band. The face also has lots of colors, as you can put on “complications.” I have no idea why they’re called that. They’re basically “desktop icons.”

bindi-irwin-o-bindilrwin-some-days-you-just-need-to-3323284725. What do you think of when you hear the word “Australia?”

Not a thought so much as pictures of my friend Allison and a meme of Bindi Irwin (if the text is too small for you to read, click on the image for hi-res).

26. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?

I don’t drive, I am rarely pressed for time, and generally there’s free wi-fi. So, inside it is.

27. What is your favorite number?

So easy I don’t even have to think about it. Eleven. Matt Smith, the baby giraffe in a bow tie (and sometimes a fez), is my Doctor. I’m in love with him a little bit because when he got the role, the Internet rebelled against him and said he was never going to be any good, but I haven’t felt more emotion in the show than watching his interactions with Amy, Rory, River Song, Vincent, and himself in a memorable soliloquy in “Nightmare in Silver.”

Also, Stranger Things. Eleven completes me.

28. Who’s the last person you talked to on the phone?

We have covered this.

29. Any plans today?

Well, my prescription is ready and they don’t deliver in my area.

30. How many states have you lived in?

Lots of geographic areas, four states:

  1. Texas
  2. Virginia
  3. Oregon
  4. Maryland

Maryland is where I have really put down roots, but I would move back to Texas to be with my family in a heartbeat if they needed me. It is the only reason I would ever move again. I’m done.

31. What most annoys you?

A little thing? When people use up all the toilet paper and don’t replace the roll.

A big thing? Injustice, anything and anywhere. I am never more angry than when I feel something is unfair, locally or globally.

33. Can you say the alphabet backwards?

I would really, really have to think about it. Not something I’ve ever really had to know…. although a funny thing about me and the alphabet is that when I was first learning my ABCs, the setup is that my mother’s name was Carolyn. I thought the song went “ABCDEFG, HIKJ Carolyn NOP.” “KJ” is not a typo.

34. Do you have a maid service clean your house?

No, but I would think I had died and gone to heaven if I did. So jealous of Disney Princesses, Mary Poppins, and Molly Weasley.

35. Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time?

It’s a three-way tie between brown Converse All-Stars, black Converse All-Stars (black laces, rubber, AND canvas), and Keene sandals. I told this to a friend and she said, “ok, you just lost cool points for wearing Keenes.” I had an unprintable response.

36. Are you jealous of anyone?

Disney Princesses, Mary Poppins, and Molly Weasley. I would even settle for Shary Bobbins.

37. Is anyone jealous of you?

I didn’t think so until I was telling a friend that I was absolutely done moving (unless my family needed me in Texas) because I had already moved so much in my life that I was ready to settle down permanently. She told me that she was jealous of me, because she wasn’t ready to make that decision yet. Actually, I’ve had that conversation twice with the same results. One lives here in town, the other lives overseas.

38. Do you love anyone?

Not romantically, but agape and philia are the rivers that run inside me. I couldn’t do without my friends. They are my lifeline, the brothers and sisters I chose for family because my bio family is so far away.

39. Do any of your friends have children?

Yes, some of them even on purpose.

40. What do you usually do during the day?

A little of everything except laundry. It’s an issue.

41. Do you hate anyone that you know right now?

Hate is such a strong word, and changes me a lot more than it changes them…. but everyone I dislike at the moment, I’ve never actually met in person.

42. Do you use the word “hello” daily?

No. I generally say “hey” even though “hey is for horses.” There’s your “Texas-ism” for the day. The reason I don’t use “hello” daily is that I generally only answer the phone that way, and people rarely call me (not that I don’t like it).

43. What color is your natural hair?

Dark brown, but liking it better and better now that I have a few gray strands that look like highlights. I might dye it anyway, though, but only because the color isn’t quite deep enough for me. It looks a bit mousy. Probably won’t go back to auburn, though. Stay tuned.

44. Are you thinking about someone right now?

Deeply.

45. Have you ever been to Six Flags?

I have. I’ve been to three Six Flags-owned parks. Six Flags Over Texas in the Dallas suburbs, AstroWorld and WaterWorld in Houston. For those that aren’t familiar, the company is named after the governing bodies throughout Texas history:

  1. Spain
  2. France
  3. Mexico
  4. The Republic of Texas
  5. The United States
  6. The Confederate States

It seems apropos right now to also give you this fact: Texas and Hawaii are the only states in the union that can fly their flags at equal height to the US flag, because we were both once our own countries.

46. How did you get your scar?

Christ, which one? I fall and hurt myself all the time. Although here are the ones tied for first place. When I was 16, I was cutting a lime with a serrated knife and sliced into my thumb. Those nerve endings never came back, so I have a dead spot I play with all the time. When I was in my early 20s, I had choir practice on Thursday nights and my first wife was way too obsessed with ER. I forgot my house key one night and even though she wasn’t a mean person, she did a mean thing. She wouldn’t let me in until a commercial. So I’m fumbling around in the yard because it’s after 9:00 PM in the fall and I trip over a tree stump, scraping and cutting my shins so badly that the scars are still so deep it feels weird to shave those parts of my legs. Let me remind you that it’s been 20 years, and the scars are no more shallow than when they happened. Geez, and I actually spent time wondering why that relationship didn’t work out……………..

47. Do you have tattoos?

Yes, an ichthus that says “Yahweh” in Hebrew, a tribal dragonfly, a Celtic knot, a quill dripping blood, and $1.83. The last is the smallest, but it’s the most important. Here’s the story behind all of them.

48. Have you ever been out of the country?

I’m not especially well-traveled, but I’ve been to Mexico, Canada, England, France, and The Bahamas. I do have a bucket list, though, and I may never make it to some of them because in the Middle East, I am terribly afraid that everything I want to see is going to be reduced to rubble, and even if it isn’t, I don’t currently have a male chaperone. I’m a feminist and all that, but I’m not stupid.

49. Looks, brains, or personality?

I am going to go with personality, because if they have a great one, their intelligence will naturally show itself. I don’t know many dumb people I could stand for more than a few minutes. For me, personality and brains are inextricably interrelated, because brains inform humor, and if I don’t think you’re hilarious, I’m out.

50. Biggest regret?

Let’s end on something real. I used to be on the “think it, say it” plan no matter what emotions I was feeling. My biggest regret is all the misdirected rage in my life at Argo. It was over-the-top and egregiously wrong, because by then I wasn’t fighting with her. I was fighting the real enemy and Argo was a not-so-casual bystander, the receiver of all the shit rolling downhill. It was not a short amount of time until I realized that I was fighting with two people who weren’t even in the room, and only one of them deserved it.

I am so glad that part of my life is over and done, but if I could pray for a do-over and it materialized, I would go back and love her the way she loved me…. with sweetness, bright, white light, honesty (both painful and real), walking around in each other’s inner landscapes……………… truly receiving all the other had to offer- no more, no less.

Master(s) of Disguise

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

I am already dressed for the speaking engagement I am attending tonight. Jonna Mendez is going to present her newest (and Tony Mendez’ last) book, 51bYPeOnLvLThe Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War. The reason I am already dressed and ready to leave is that I am inexplicably anxious.

Well, maybe not inexplicably. First of all, Jonna is credited as an author on this book, but she also assisted Tony & Matt (Baglio) on Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History.

For those who are scratching their heads at why Jonna and Tony have the same last name, it’s because they were married for 28 years. Tony’s death this past January hit me extremely hard. Part of my anxiety is knowing in advance that I could be emotional, and because I’m going to be in front of his wife, I feel that they’re not really my emotions to have. I mean, I never met him (I wanted to, and I know for sure that if he was still alive and his Parkinson’s was under control, tonight would have been the night- he and Jonna were/are on the board at The International Spy Museum).

Even though he was not a personal friend and I can’t say I knew him, there are these authors that get under your skin to the point where you feel like you do. Tony is that author for me, and I am so glad that his stories did not die with him- that there are still more of his words for me to discover. After I finish The Moscow Rules, I’m going to read Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools and Operations that Helped Win the Cold War, which, according to Jonna’s web site, is often used as curriculum for new CIA recruits, and was the first book that the couple wrote together.

Attendees are encouraged to show up early, as Tony’s notes for this book will be on display. I will get to see his handwriting, his process, and hopefully some of his humor… which was always on display in real life. For instance, when Ben Affleck was cast as him in the movie adaptation of Argo, Tony said that he himself was much better looking.

It is in this portion of the evening, wandering around the glass cases, that I hope my emotions bubble up, because it will be more private. I’m not overly fond of emoting in front of a bunch of people, anyway. That being said, you cannot control feelings, and the more you try, the more they fight you to get out.

I am sure that I have mentioned this before, but one of the reasons that Tony’s books have become so precious is that my great uncle, Foster Fort, was in the military and later worked for both the C and DIA in different capacities.

He was killed in a helicopter crash when I was very, very young. I wasn’t old enough to have a real conversation with him after he retired, because he never got old enough to do so, and he couldn’t have told me anything while he was still working. In a way, he’s become a legend in our family, because when you work for either clandestine service, your family only gets to guess what you’re doing, and are often very, very wrong.

I mean, maybe he was just a helicopter pilot. I think that if you get tapped by the C and DIA, though, there’s probably more to it than that. When I think of Foster, I imagine him “putting on the last suit he’ll ever wear,” and I laugh to myself. I laugh even harder when I picture Agent O doing his funeral. But on a more serious note, it is comforting to feel as if our family has a connection to one of the stars on the wall at Langley.

I have no idea what kind of stories I would have heard, but I do know that I will hear some amazing ones tonight. You don’t get to be Chief of Disguise at CIA without living through a few. There are a TON of YouTube videos (this one’s my favorite– the Homeland gag KILLS me) of her talks and they’re all so interesting you wish they’d go on for three more hours. At the end of one video, the comment that literally sent tears and snot running down my face as I shook violently with laughter was, “who else was waiting for her to take off her disguise and find out it’s really a black dude?”

One of the best things she explains is “the quick change,” which is layering disguises so that you can take off clothing, glasses, etc. in 37 seconds, changing your appearance even while walking in the middle of a crowd. They have to be so precise that they are rehearsed beforehand, because as she says, you don’t want anyone to know you’ve escaped. You want them to think that they’ve lost you and it’s all their fault.

If Jonna doesn’t talk about it, I want to ask her if she was a consultant on Atomic Blonde, because for me, it personifies the Moscow rules. Even if she wasn’t, I still want to know if she’s seen it.

One of the Moscow rules that I learned from watching other videos (I’d give you a link, but I don’t remember which one) is that there was/is a shoelace code in the CIA. It’s to be able to pass messages to other agents without being noticeable. After I saw the video, I retied my Adidas Gazelles. I have no idea what they say, though. I hope I’m not telling other case officers that they’re being followed. Hey, in DC, you never know who’s next to you in a crowd.

Case in point: I once rode the Metro for four extra stops just because I got into a conversation with a female intelligence officer stationed in Germany during The Cold War. I don’t even remember how I got her to tell me that…. I just remember thinking in my head that she must be military or C/DIA because there aren’t that many black people in Germany.

My feet didn’t touch the ground for hours afterward, because even though I have no interest whatsoever in being a spy myself, I managed to engineer a conversation in which intimate details were spilled without her feeling as if a game was being played…. and there was. It was “how much can I get her to tell me in four extra stops?” It wasn’t like I was looking for secrets- she was retired and all her ops were UNCLASS. It felt like accidentally walking into Bletchley Circle.

Every time I think I would be a good case officer, I remember that I only speak English, I am often a little slow on the uptake, and more than likely I would trip, fall and die before I ever reached my contact…. which leads me to two scenes from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:

Elsa: It’s perfectly obvious where the pages are. He’s given them to Marcus Brody.

Professor Henry Jones: Marcus? You didn’t drag poor Marcus along did you? He’s not up to the challenge.

Walter Donovan: He sticks out like a sore thumb. We’ll find him.

Indiana Jones: The hell you will. He’s got a two day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody’s got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he’ll blend in, disappear, you’ll never see him again. With any luck, he’s got the grail already.

[Cut to middle of fair in the Middle East, Marcus Brody wearing bright suit and white hat, sticking out like sore thumb]

Marcus Brody: Uhhh, does anyone here speak English?

Then, later…………………

[Indiana and Henry are tied up]

Indiana Jones: Come on, dad. Help me get us out of here. We have to get to Marcus before the Nazis do.

Professor Henry Jones: But you said he had a two day head start. That he would blend in, disappear.

Indiana Jones: Are you kidding? I made all that up. You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum.

If this isn’t an accurate depiction of me as a spy, I don’t know what would be…. and I promise, it’s not that I’m short-selling myself. I just know myself too well. One of the overhead pieces of audio at The International Spy Museum talks about people “living by their wits,” and I thought to myself that if it were my wits, we were all gonna die….. accidentally, of course, but it’s not the sort of situation where you can say, “oops. My bad. Should I leave a note?” Being a good case officer is learning to think 50 moves ahead- knowing how to checkmate the king before you’ve even opened…. like Jonna and Tony.

I am honored to be an audience member for Jonna’s current book tour, and am looking forward to more. There are a few other cities in which she’s speaking, so if you’re close to any of them, I highly suggest you go.

I am so honored, in fact, that I have changed outfits four times…. just not in 37 seconds.

@CIA @StateDept

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The news that’s coming out of the intel community ranges from unsettling to terrifying. Some agents think that President Trump is compromised, and I don’t think they’re wrong. So we have a situation in which reports go underground at best, and really good people, brilliant civil servants, just walking away and watching everything burn because they can’t take it anymore. For them, it’s like working in the middle of a raging dumpster fire.

What you see in media is not reality. It’s not all “James Bond moments.” Most of it is poring over documents, and in the field, agents have access to money, but it’s for someone or something else. They make regular government salaries when they could make eight times more in the private sector, and are trying to do the right thing, anyway. Civil servants are desperately needed, especially translators, cryptographers, and hackers- but with the current administration, they’re having trouble filling jobs all over the place.

It’s not just intel, it’s also State. Having a boss actively working against you would be awful in any job. Why bust your ass for so little money when you’re just going to be ignored, anyway?

It is my hope and prayer that by keeping President Trump out of the loop, everyone at CIA, NSA, FBI, State, etc. can make some headway on these clear and present dangers. It is as awful an attack as Pearl Harbor, with the exception that people can see and understand a bombing. It takes a special kind of person to be able to understand and deflect cracking attacks, particularly with voting machines.

The longer this goes on, the more I believe that Hillary Clinton is our rightful president, and now there’s nothing we can do about it, because no one in Congress has brought up having a new election, and even if we did, voting machines can (and so far, will) still be hacked. The midterms, to me, are so scary I rarely want to think about them…. because what if the will of the people is again thwarted? The “blue wave” most Americans want is not necessarily what they’ll get.

Allowing civil servants to be interviewed by the Russians is probably sending them to their deaths, and I wish I was just being dramatic. It would make me happy to know that I was, but I don’t think so. Putin is not known for being kind.

The reason I’m using @ for CIA and State is because CIA’s charter says that they don’t operate within the United States, so it is generally their job to go in country. With State, I don’t think diplomacy will work, and not that it shouldn’t…. that President Trump always calls an audible and works around them, eschewing protocol that has been in place for what seems like eons…. and it’s been like that since he took office, not just recently.

I am devastated that the GOP doesn’t seem to see the difference between supporting a politician and supporting a tyrant…. many of them, actually, because I refuse to believe that President Trump is smart enough to do all this on his own. They are all content to “fiddle while the United States burns.”

Nikita Khrushchev said during the Cold War that Russia is capable of making the United States destroy itself, and now, it’s working. So far, we’ve alienated the countries that would help us if we asked, before President Trump just went batshit crazy on all of them. It wouldn’t even help if President Trump was impeached, because the United States would be stuck somewhere between Leviticus and 1950 with a Pence presidency, and on the topic of Russian interference, he has been strangely silent, making me wonder if he is complicit/compromised as well.

Of course, my opinion is just my opinion, but I hope it’s an educated one. I am just a “news junkie,” with no actual letters behind my name for my thoughts to even matter. That being said, not speaking out is not an option for me. Too much has happened to keep silent, especially with my background in IT. My knowledge on the industry is somewhere between organ grinder and monkey, because I’m just a Geek to English translator. But I have been to lectures on hacking and cracking, so I know just enough to expound on what a dire situation this actually is. We are at war, and unfortunately, on the defense, because we have a president that refuses to acknowledge it.

But the war is taking place underground, in dark places people can’t comprehend if they do not also have a background in computers or networking. Believe me when I say that right now, we are on the losing end, in a total shitshow.

Such a small number of people still want to work for us after just having had enough already. Blessings on the people who have decided to stay and fight, especially as there become fewer of them. Why wouldn’t there be? With President Trump actively inviting Putin to come to the US in the fall, and not opposed to turning over our people to him for “questioning,” they’re probably already aware that what it really means is torture…. but, of course, our president would never assume that, because everything is above board, right? The president of Russia obviously has our best interests at heart, and please read that with dripping sarcasm, deep sighs, and a large eye roll.

Trying to cover up treason seems in poor taste, but that’s exactly what’s happening. Presidents promise to defend us against all enemies, foreign and domestic… and so far, the domestic enemies have become the media and anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly agree with the ongoing plan to subvert the world order.

If you are the type person that thinks everything is going to be fine, buckle up, Buttercup. We’re so far behind we think we’re first- American egocentricity at its finest.

What’s Russian for “we’re totally screwed right now?”

But maybe I’m just being dramatic.