Sometimes there’s a thin line between vile demagoguery and pure idiocy. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi straddled both during a Sunday appearance on CNN, when she smeared protesters who’ve been demanding a ceasefire to end Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian people in Gaza.

“The former House speaker said, without offering evidence, that she believed some protesters are connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” NPR reported.

I watched Mom lock the door after the policeman left and ducked out of sight so she wouldn’t see me. I was supposed to be upstairs in bed, but when she went to the bathroom to take her shower, I came down to the kitchen to get a drink of grape Kool-Aid, my favorite. I was on my way back upstairs when he knocked on the door. I froze in the middle of the steps, thinking “Oh crap, I’m gonna get it.”

“Sara! Get the door please.” Mom yelled at me, thinking I was still in my bedroom. Before I could turn around to go back down the stairs to open the door, he knocked again.

“Sara! Open the door, I’m in the bathroom girl!” Mom yelled louder.

“OK Mom, I’m getting it.” As I got to the last step, he started banging on the door all hard and everything, and I knew that Mom was gonna come out of that bathroom and handle this person because she hated it when people knocked hard on her door. Said people needed to learn how-to knock-on people’s doors like they had some sense. Only people that knocked that hard she said had “better be the police or have a damn good excuse for knocking like that on my door.” Sure nuff, Mom came storming out of the bathroom towards the steps. 

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the Forum – I mean Geffen Playhouse: A motorcade of truly presidential proportions waylaid traffic, with siren-blaring, orders-giving motorcycle cops squealing via loudspeakers and SUV-type vehicles tying up traffic, so some self-important high-muck-a-muck could impose a mini-police state over Westwood in order to reach some destination. The thought crossed my mind: Either Trump has launched his pig putsch or is Kamala going to watch POTUS on the boards? Through some deft maneuvering I managed to make my way through the pig-created traffic jam (your tax dollars at work!) and reach the Geffen in time for the curtain, with, thankfully, no White House pompous bigwig in sight. (Ironically, a POTUS press release I received had this in the subject line: “POTUS is Now in L.A. (Without the traffic.)” Can I sue for false advertising?)