Ampersand Gazette #118
Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on some of the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …
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Liberals Are Preaching Moral Values.
What Took Them So Long?
New York Times nonfiction book critic Jennifer Szalai reviews three new books that address liberal moral values. The words of Senator Raphael Warnock, Senator Chris Murphy, and Senator Cory Booker offer us a hint to the steps needed to remake the United States of America into its own quite magnificent image of itself.
Part of the vast trouble liberals have had is to figure out where to stand, in the Archimedean lever sense. Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the whole world, he said.
One place to stand was “the rhetoric of evenhandedness which seemed to reflect something more fundamental: a presumption that liberal ideals like tolerance, freedom and rule of law were morally incontestable and therefore beyond reproach.”
Raphael Warnock of Georgia says democracy is “the political enactment of a spiritual idea.”
Chris Murphy of Connecticut calls for “a shift in our understanding of what we owe one another.”
Cory Booker writes “Virtue—the disciplined practice of our highest ideals—is the strategy through which we as a nation survive and prevail.”
Ms. Szalai asks the experts what happened instead. Here are some theories:
“Why did liberals abandon this moral high ground? One possibility is excessive optimism.”
“An alternative possibility is excessive fatalism.”
“There is perhaps another argument to be made that liberals weren’t defensive enough—that they were confident to the point of complacency.”
Uh, okay. We’re getting to the core of it. What else?
“Increasingly liberalism became defined as a form of protection: a bulwark against violence, not an engine for freedom.”
“The most important job of the liberal therefore is not to maximize happiness, it is to prevent bad people from inflicting harm on citizens.”
“Liberalism needs to rediscover its radical spirit, yet at the same time it needs to rediscover the spirit of moderation.”
He went that-a-way, anyone?
Liberals became the party against—in fact, so against that the average person can’t say any more what liberals are for. And we, as metaphysicians, know that it is impossible to create anything against, not for long-term gain.
Originally, liberal was connected to the notion of liberality; what Cicero called liberalitas. It meant both free and generous.
“A freeborn citizen of the Roman Republic wasn’t supposed to use his freedom to selfishly pursue his own interests; he was obliged to act in ways that reinforced his bonds with his fellow citizens.”
Just the same, “in the 18th century, Adam Smith would echo this notion in his ‘Theory of Moral Sentiments.’ Smith’s citizen promoted “the welfare of the whole society.” It made no sense to sense to speak of rights without duties.
Philosopher Alexandre Lefebvre writes, “Liberals ‘fixate on the opponents of liberalism, and how horrible populists, nativists and authoritarians are. Only rarely are the strengths and virtues of liberalism talked up.”
Let’s stop there, although the essay has a great deal more to say.
Do you see the prescription for the ailing patient? It seems patently obvious to me. Not only that but this book review names where liberals went “wrong.” Do you see it?
Against is the weakest stance one can take in any situation.
So these three senators have written, and I agree with them. In the chaos of this time in the world, it’s hard to know what to be for, and easy to know what to be against.
The 250th Anniversary of this miraculous experiment should have been “a gimme,” I quote a Times journalist from this morning’s paper. It isn’t.
So here’s my suggestion: pick one thing, one thing, that you’re for, really for, and work toward it. Act as if the 250th actually was a free, generous gimme, and if enough of us do this, we’ll reach critical mass, and the point will tip.
Happy Fourth!
Excerpted from an essay by Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times
“Liberals Are Preaching Moral Values. What Took hem So Long?”
June 29, 2026
P.S. This essay is structured differently than the usual ones; the commentary appears within the article excerpts.
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Live and let live, be and let be,
Hear and let hear, see and let see,
Sing and let sing, dance and let dance. ...
Live and let live and remember this line:
"Your bus'ness is your bus'ness and my bus'ness is mine."
Cole Porter, composer and songwriter (9 Jun 1893-1964)
The Question:
How can I mind my own business ?
&mpersand Answers:
I swear I think one of the major principles of spiritual teaching for every faith, and yes, I do mean every faith, is MYOB.
I don’t mean this in the usual diss sort of way either. I mean it as sincere, serious, long-overdue, dearly practical advice.
So let’s ask the question for real: Are you minding your own business? (In case you missed it, that’s what I was advising in the essay above.)
This means: are you taking care of yourself and what you need in the world or are you so busy minding everyone else’s business in the name of some disordered moral ideal that you actually neglect yourself?
Here’s one way to tell: if you spend more time commenting on the lives and behaviors of others, you’re minding the business of others. (People magazine, anyone?)
Stop. Just stop.
Because if you’re not on or near the top of your own list, then where are you in terms of taking care of and minding your own life?
Give this a try for a week: every time you notice yourself minding the business of others, make a tick on a list. This includes your thoughts, words, and deeds. You might be astonished at how much you’re minding the business of others.
What I believe? None of your business. What you believe? 100% your business.
Who I love? None of your business. Who you love? 100% your business.
What I do? None of your business. What you do? 100% your business.
You get the idea. How you mind your own business is you pay attention to you!
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Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever …
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So Betrayed is still going more slowly than molasses in January, and I am, in turns, by leaps and bounds, and then molasses slogs figuring out why.
It won’t surprise you to hear me note that I never write anything that doesn’t have a lesson for me in it. Perhaps easier to digest: everything I write has a lesson for me personally. That’s where the case mantras started in Mex!
Well, this particular book is a lulu, a doozy, and a yowza. Seriously.
Eventually, I had to ask: where do I feel betrayed? This is where I left off last time, and I thought things were good to go with the book. I’d go back to writing my average thousand words a day, and call it good.
But no.
We live in a world based upon the Complementarity of Opposites. You know this. I know this. So what happened next? I had to ask: where have I betrayed others? And the heavens opened upon my head. I have been doing forgiveness work like a fiend, and thanking the Divine for showing me how to clean up some pretty sticky parts of my own life. Of course.
And yes, Virginia, I’m still writing the book. Oy.
The eleventh Mex Mystery is still pulling at my consciousness, too. I think it’s because it’s been so long since I’ve written a Mex. I miss her! I’ll get to it, I will. Part of what’s delaying things is that this recovery from major surgery is really only now just beginning, and I’m manifesting side effects from it that totally wipe me out.
Ah well, the best-laid plans of cabbages, kings, and authors. Be patient, dear readers. I will get to it, just not as lickety-quickety as I’d wanted to. Patience is not my primary virtue either.
Book Eleven is called Shrew This! and it takes place during the Covid-19 shutdown. Anchored in an all-female production of Taming of the Shrew presented by the residents of a safe-house shelter, it addresses intimate partner violence. The spiritual healing modality is the use of mandala, one of my favorite methods for calming my nervous system. Coloring. Seriously.
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Please make this indie author happy. Choose one of my series, and read all of them. Then review all of them. That’s the way others find books.
The Subversive Lovelies, is one option. Or the Mex Mysteries, all eleven of them. Or, you could start The Boots & Boas Butch-Femme Romances … then there’s always the option of starting with one series and reading them all!
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Many years ago, I worked for the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization. You might say it was the ultimate family business. Richard Rodgers, prior to being a composer, was a CPA. It made him extremely aware of the business side of music. Both he and Oscar Hammertsein II were sons of men named William, so when it came time to publish their music, they formed a music publishing company, like ya do, Williamson Music. They owned all the rights to their own work, and they profited from it brilliantly.
So what could R & H possibly have to do with one-stop shop book husband (and, FWIW, my husband) Tony Amato? He holds a special mastery in family stories, and I do not say that lightly.
Having worked on more than many of them over the more than thirty years of his career as an editor, he has an uncanny ability to discern, draw out, and detail the universal themes in personal story, and what could be more personal than family? What’s particularly wonderful about this singular skill is that he can hold you, the author, whilst you go through every yummy and every yucky part of your story, and help you heal from it (although that’s a side effect.) He can help you see how your story will help you heal others, which is so often the point of telling it.
Is it time you had a reliable container for the stories of your life that need telling? I know a guy. This is the guy, I promise you. Find Tony Amato here.
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The Sixth Demon: Book One
As a general rule of thumb, I’m not much one for demons either. Demons, Fae, Aliens, Werewolves, not so much. Vampires, yes please. I can’t really explain why. But, then there’s R. A. Steffan’s four-book series, The Sixth Demon.
Here’s the Book One blurb:
“An angel locked out of Heaven. A demon on the hunt for an escaped soul.
Watch out, because all Hell is about to break loose.
When the Archangels slammed the pearly gates shut on the great war between the Demons and the Fae, the angel Shemasiel missed the memo. Trapped alone on Earth, she’s spent the past few millennia sticking her nose in where it’s not wanted, and generally being a nuisance to the people in charge.
Posing as human investigative reporter Neveah Lane, she’s first on the scene of a mysterious death with hallmarks of the supernatural. But when one of Hell’s most notorious demons is also sent to investigate, it quickly becomes apparent that more is at stake than the death of a single woman.
Now, with the truce between two powerful, warring races hanging in the balance, a stranded angel and Hell’s most devious spymaster must choose whether to oppose each other on principle, or work together for peace. As the two orbit each other in pursuit of their competing goals, Neveah finds herself experiencing the appeal of the forbidden for the first time in her ageless existence.
Angels are supposed to be immune from temptation. Too bad Neveah was never a very good angel.
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The Sixth Demon is an urban fantasy romance series by R. A. Steffan, set in the same world as the bestselling series The Last Vampire, Vampire Bound, and Forsaken Fae.
Download Book One today, and enter a world shared by humans, angels, demons, fae, and vampires. It’s a place where the supernatural threatens the mundane, nothing is as it seems, and love will either be the world’s downfall—or its salvation.”
R. A. Steffan’s world-building is impeccable, meticulous, without flaw. Every time I thought I might see a hole in the plot, she plugged it. This whole series The Last Vampire, Vampire Bound, Forsaken Fae, and The Sixth Demon, is well worth your reading time. She’s a genius, with a sense of humor so good that she makes me laugh out loud sitting all by myself reading her books. The only drawback is … finishing them. Now I need to wait another year or two to reread them.
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Are you waiting for a sign?
How about this one?
Curtain up! Light the lights!
You are the Star of your own Story.
You have to be,
because who else could possibly
do the job as well?
Now, we all know, on some level,
that we star in our own stories,
but we don’t always act that way,
do we?
So at the end of this
weekend celebrating
FREEDOM,
don’t brag about it,
don’t even tell anyone,
but …
STEP INTO THE SPOTLIGHT
for just a moment
please,
And let yourself be the
*S*T*A*R*
that you know you are.
Brava!
Bravo!
Bravi!
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I am, without doubt, certain that And is the secret to all we desire.
Let’s commit to practicing And ever more diligently, shall we?
Until next time,
Be Ampersand