Today is Friday, January 7, 2022. It is a day after the second worst sacking of the Capitol that occurred last year in 2021. The cult of Trump still decided to stay away from the ceremonies marking the one-year anniversary of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The only Republicans present for the events in the House were Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the House Select Committee investigating the atrocities of January 6, and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who had his own questionable legacy as vice president under George W. Bush, who stood with her daughter to respect a moment of silence in recognition of the siege. I believe that the only other Republican who would have been there, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, could not attend because his wife was expecting a second child.

Asked to comment on the state of the Republican Party, the elder Cheney said he is “deeply disappointed” at the failure of repugnican leaders to stand up to the wanna-be dictator. He sadly noted, “It’s not a leadership that resembles any of the folks I knew when I was here for 10 years.”

From one shameful act to another, we have the story of the master groveler, Senator Ted “Oooze” of Texas, who groveled in front of his better, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, on Wednesday after he had truthfully depicted the January 6 insurrection as a “terrorist attack.” This story is covered in an online CNN article by Daniel Dale entitled ‘Sloppy’ wording this week? Ted Cruz actually called the Capitol assault a terrorist attack at least 17 previous times.” It appeared that the despicable host of the “Insurrection Network,” as dubbed by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, bashed the shameless senator for telling the unvarnished truth and rather than defending his true description of the terrible events of January 6, went on Carlson’s disgusting show to try to depict his Wednesday words as a careless slip. I heard some of this clip on Chris Hayes show just earlier and it was cringe-worthy. How the senator wanted to curry favor with the “news” host was truly pathetic. But we all know Oooze is the same man who groveled before the feet of his Orange Leader even after this same tyrant – excuse me, leader – trashed his wife and suggested his own father was responsible in some way for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Does this guy have a soul, even?

Despite his efforts to gloss over what he exactly said about the January 6th siege, Cruz cannot take back all of the times that he accurately described the attack as an act of terror. The rest of the article describes all of the times Oooze accurately described the assault on the Capitol. I don’t need to repeat them here for your edification. Ted Oooze’s take-back of the truth illustrates just how his own party has done the same, despite there being coverage of many of his colleagues denouncing the attack as incited by Donald J. Dumpf right after the events of January 6. Oooze should be roundly condemned for his pathetic performance in the shadow of “Fucker” Carlson from all facets of social media. Now the entire repugnican party is suffering from widespread amnesia regarding the insurrection. This is shameful, pathetic, and downright despicable. What is a country to do – with these lawmakers? I say vote the entire bunch of rotten apples out!

The New York University history professor and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat was just interviewed by Ali Velshi on MSNBC at 9 on the publication of her new book, Strongmen, and she spoke of a new term that might describe this country at this most fraught moment: anocracy. I’ve never heard of the term, so what did I do, I Googled it and got this definition. “Anocracy or semidemocracy is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a ‘regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features.’ . . . The term ‘semidemocratic’ is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements.” So you be the judge then? Are we a democracy at this point in time or an “anocracy”?

On a more personal level, I and the world are mourning the loss of another award-winning actor and humanist, Sidney Poitier, Hollywood’s first Black movie star, who died today at the age of 94. He was the first Black man to win the best actor Oscar in 1963 for Lillies of the Field. In the film he portrayed an itinerant laborer who helps a group of white nuns build a chapel.

For those of us of a certain age, who can forget his many memorable performances. There is the sultry racial tensions bubbling over in his portrayal of Philadelphia’s detective Virgil Tibbs fighting bigotry in small-town Mississippi alongside bigoted police chief Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night that won the best picture award for 1967. Poitier plays a doctor engaged to Katharine Houghton, Katharine Hepburn’s niece, who wins over her skeptical white liberal parents played by Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” The one role I especially remembered him for – very fondly – is his East London teacher role in To Sir, With Love which has the title song sung by Lulu. I recall actually seeing the movie for the first time – don’t gasp – in Times Square. This was long before the area was Disneyfied in the 90s by new residents on the block.

I won’t list all of his many acclaimed roles here. You can research what he did during his life or read his memoir, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, which was written in 2000. ( Of course, I have the book and have read more than half of it.) In the book, he described his lifelong attempt to live according to principles instilled in him by his father and others he admired. By the dawn of the millennium, Poitier had retired from acting, choosing instead to play golf and write this memoir.

In 2009, President Obama awarded the trailblazing actor the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. Can we rescind the same award from the cold hands of Rush Limbaugh who was presented the same honor by the Orange Menace some years back? What a joke! At the award ceremony, Obama said this about Poitier: “It’s been said that Sidney Poitier does not make movies, he makes milestones . . . milestones of artistic excellence, milestones of America’s progress.”

The Film Society of Lincoln Center bestowed its highest award on Poitier in 2011. One of those praising the renowned actor was filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who said, “In the history of movies, they’ve only been a few actors who, once they gained recognition, their influence forever changed the art form. There’s a time before their arrival, and there’s a time after their arrival, arrival. And after their arrival, nothing’s ever going to be the same again. As far as the movies are concerned, there was pre-Poitier, and there was Hollywood post-Poitier.” Well said, Mr. Tarantino.

So for Mr. Poitier, rest with the angels!

Before signing off, I must mention the funniest music video created by Stephen Colbert and his Late Show staff which pays homage to the hit Broadway musical Rent to reflect on the one-year anniversary of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The show changed the lyrics to the song “Seasons of Love” to account for the aftermath of the insurrection. The song begins by listing the number of minutes in a common year as “Abhor-Rent” appears onscreen to mimic the musical’s logo.

The song has this beginning: “Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes. Three hundred sixty-five days since feces were smeared.” It continues with, “12,000 self-incriminating Instagram pictures. One viking shaman doing three-and-a-half years.” The video then shows a mugshot of “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley as he was photographed for jail shorn of hair.

The song belts a wallop with “Stupid flags, huge douchebags, and this ass-wipe’s shoe,” showing a picture of Richard Barnett, who was the Arkansas man photographed with his foot on a desk in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Then the lyric “727 insurrectionists arrested,” and you hear the audience cheering the news.

What I loved was the next lyric: “Who else should be jailed for this unsuccessful coup? How about this bum?” as a picture of the deranged Orange One is shown on-screen. Then this lyric: “He’s a traitorous scum, likes to stare at the sun, like Mussolini but dumb.”

The song also bashes the many repugnicans who voted with the insurrectionists to overturn the election only hours after the attack, with “147 treasonous dimwits,” as pictures of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar are shown.

Ted Cruz is lampooned with, “One of whom really cannot pull off a beard.” Now a picture of the Texas dimwit is shown with his awful new beard and the lyric, “Is that a dead skunk?” referring to the bad beard. Rudy [Giuliani] looks drunk,” with a picture of the ex-mayor of New York looking crazed – or even drunk – at one of his rallies. There is also a picture of Donald, Jr. with this lyric, “IQ of one.”

Try to find this very humorous send-up of the events of January 6 on YouTube. Though the aftermath of the riot is no laughing matter, I must say.

So have a good weekend. Tomorrow is supposed to be quite cold, with temps in the 30s. We also did have our first snowfall today. I’m not sure how many inches of snow fell. I would guess somewhere between three to five inches. I did go out and walked to Kew Gardens to pick up a book for Elliot at Kew & Willow Books, Fiona Hill’s new alarming book on American democracy, There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century. I didn’t want to take out the car from our indoor garage and expose it to the elements and possibly not find a spot in Kew Gardens. So I wore my trusty purple sweater and Uggs boots and took my time to get to the bookstore.

Stay safe and be well.