Longview

 I am no stranger to losing. 

I had an older brother, after all. 

I say this not in any particularly spiteful way. As a matter of fact, hindsight suggests that the competition that I felt was natural between us turns out to be more of a delusion on my part than anything else. At the same time, this didn't mean that I wasn't often on the short end of the stick when it came to most of the trials that presented us. Again, if anything, my older brother showed some remarkable patience with me when it came to my need to try and assert myself beyond the bounds of our birth order. He had a three year and nine month head start and my best efforts to usurp that advantage were generally met with frustration. 

And then there was the kid down the street. The one who I latched onto as my best friend starting in kindergarten, but couldn't imagine leaving behind until I was in eighth grade. For him, the world was a staged version of Survivor before reality TV ever existed. Collecting prizes from cereal boxes, playing basketball on his driveway, board games of any stripe, and anything that might have appeared to include an element of chance became a way to impress his domination over me and most of the other kids in the neighborhood. I was his patsy. I worried that if I declined the chance to be humiliated in the contest of his choosing that I might lose my tenuous standing in the overall scheme of things on our street. 

What I never took into account at the time was the reason for this kid's compulsion to be in direct competition with his peers. Upon reflection, it seems that the distance between him and his older brothers were both more than eight years older than he was, leaving him little in the way of traditional sibling rivalry. On those rare occasions when his older brother would come out to the back yard to play football with us, he took special care to pound and humiliate his much smaller kin. I can remember one instance that ended up with the smaller one in tears, causing him to take a lap around the house and upon his return he suggested that we do anything else but play football. 

He wasn't there to be humiliated. 

However, it seemed that I was. And so for years I kept showing up thinking that I could somehow get the upper hand in some game or tournament. It never occurred to me that I was more than a match for him academically, and if his world was so great, why was he always hanging around my house looking for a handout of Snickers bars and Kool-Aid? Never, that is, until my world began to open up to kids with similar interests and backgrounds when I moved on to junior and senior high school. 

By this time, the challenges I had once felt between my older brother and I had dissipated into a much friendlier rivalry. A supportive version that brought me to where I am today. I don't mind losing so much anymore because I have discovered that on a long enough timeline, it all evens out. 

What a relief. 

The Cave

 There are few places on the planet more enlightened and forward thinking than Sesame Street. This is the place, after all, where they chose to deal directly with the death of Mister Hooper. In December 1982, rather than glossing over the fact that the actor, Will Lee, had passed away the folks at the Children's Television Workshop decided to mourn the loss of the neighborhood grocery store in an episode about loss and grief. The grown-ups came together to help Big Bird sort out his emotions about the departure of his good friend, "Mister Looper." 

Heartbreaking. 

But if you're looking for something really off center, one need step just a few years past mourning a beloved cast member and zoom in on the realization that after fourteen years of blissful ignorance, these same "grown-ups" could finally see Mister Snuffleupagus. After a decade and a half of simply ignoring Big Bird's insistence that he had a big brown fuzzy friend the size of a wooly mammoth, these enlightened New Yorkers finally opened their eyes long and wide enough to see the giant Muppet elephant in the room. 

Understand that I am not knocking the CTW or PBS or any of the powers-that-be for taking so long to reveal one of the most beloved characters on Sesame Street to the people who live on the street with this floppy Eeyore facsimile. It was a bit that played. "What do you mean there's a big brown elephant living on the street with us? You must be crazy, Big Bird." Cue sad trombone sound. 

But for fourteen years, Big Bird kept his feathers together while those around him treated him like he must be looney. Then, in just a few minutes of confronting the reality that had been there all along, Bob and the rest of the gang decided that "From now on, Big Bird, we'll believe you whenever you tell us something." Hugs and apologies all around. 

And this made it okay for everyone, including Mister Snuffleupagus, to live together in harmony on Sesame Street. 

I believe there is an allegory in here for us all to reflect on and share for the next four years. Reality is not always easily accepted by grown-ups. We're much better with death. 

Go figure. 

Evidence

 I watched a fourth/fifth grade confrontation unfold in real time thanks to the cameras we have mounted throughout the building. It happened on the playground during lunch, and the group of students involved seemed to be pretty savvy about where grownups tend to focus their attention during recess. 

The action began with a few girls lingering around the soccer goal at one end of the field. One of them broke away to rush to the cafeteria where we can only assume she was off to tell one of her "friends" about what was being said about. The "friend" came storming out shortly after, hands on hips, chin stuck way out. 

This entrance delighted the crowd of boys and girls who caught wind of this potential altercation and some of them were actually bouncing up and down in anticipation. This swirling mob continued to grow as the action moved toward the bathrooms. Progress stalled when the offended girl cornered the girl who was making the comments. 

There was no sound, but since this is where I actually made my way into what had become a fracas, I can tell you that the volume and the tenor of the discussion had reached very inappropriate levels. This is where and when the adults, including myself, stepped in. Layers of eager bystanders were peeled back until the central figures were found somewhere in the middle of all that blood frenzy. 

Disappontment rained down as the very heightened girls were escorted to the principal's office. 

The video only lasted a couple of minutes, but it told a tale that had been brewing for a week. Rather than accepting any of the advice given to them by adults, parents and teachers alike, the students in fourth and fifth grade seemed willing to sacrifice their classmates to the god of war. Fourth grade girls, it would seem, come from Mars. 

By the end of the week, after many phone calls and meetings had been made, the grudge seemed to be settled. But those images of how it all blew up will linger in my mind for some time to come. 

Signs

 I suppose I could blame myself. I don't have a lot of luck with yard signs. 

My wife and I did not choose to stick a metal stake in our lawn to support Kamala Harris, so maybe that's where this thing fell apart. Contrastingly, however, we did have a couple asking our neighbors and fellow Oaklanders to turn back the wave of recall elections stirred up by those who are unhappy with the state of affairs here in our fair city. Current results have called for recall elections for both our mayor and the county's district attorney. 

Pamela Price, elected in 2022, was swept into office along with a wave of progressive prosecutors looking to reform criminal justice across the country. A spike in crime has put the brakes on that movement in the East Bay. Turns out that maybe when it comes to crime, Oaklanders aren't as patient with reform as our liberal reputation might lead one to believe. 

Mayor Sheng Tao has experienced similar criticism after she fired Oakland's chief of police and California's governor was moved to send a phalanx of Highway Patrol officers to stem the tide of malfeasance. Add to that an FBI raid on her house as part of a scandal that has yet to be fully reckoned by anyone involved and the loss of the Oakland Athletics to (shudder) Las Vegas and you have the recipe for recall. 

Which is pretty tough news coming to an office who had just balanced an historically unruly budget and in the month of October, while those pro-recall voices were being echoed and amplified by yard signs on other people's lawns there were no homicides in Oakland suggesting that finally violent crime was on the decline. 

No matter. Now the city and county will be have to foot the bill for an additional election expected to cost in the neighborhood of ten million dollars. At a time when cash is tight across the region, including here at the Oakland Unified School District that is starting to make noises about closing schools again to save money. 

That sound you hear is the creaking of Oakland's politics and the seemingly impossible task of pleasing the profoundly diverse constituency and all of their interests. Loud enough, it seems to drown out the giggles of the people who seem to be the only ones making anything out of this distress: The makers of all those yard signs. 

Necessary?

 In a previous century, a very long time ago, I spied a T-shirt in a crowd at a rock concert that gave me a chuckle. It read, "Is Quincy Really Necessary?"

For those of you who were not alive/aware when this moment took place, there was once a television show, named for its main character, called Quincy M.E. The series starred Jack Klugman, late of Oscar Madison fame, as a Medical Examiner whose forensic talents made him indispensable to his local police force. Quincy was solving all manner of complex cases based on his experience with dead people. When there was no one else to turn to, the constabulary turned to the guy in the morgue. 

Which, for me, is where the humor arose. What sort of lame investigative force would one have to have in order to use the guy who deals with stiffs as your best and most trusted resource? Dead, as Doctor Fronkenstien would tell you, is dead. Cause of death? Sure. That makes sense. But the active rushing about town, car chases and the like? Leave that kind of thing to a really good cop. Like TJ Hooker. 

Now, at last I bring you to my point: What sort of Quincy does it take to unravel the death of democracy? Weren't we all watching it in real time? Didn't we all have at least a chance to participate? All of these pundits and talking heads doing post mortems on the most recent presidential election are possibly only marking time while they still have jobs. Those who are out there stirring a pot best kept for those we have only recently referred to as "nuts" are seemingly very anxious to uncover some kind of nefarious scheme that would make sense as to how things could have slipped off the rails for the Democrats.

It's really quite simple, and I offer up this clever bit as an analogy: Do you know why when you see a flock of geese flying in formation there is one side that has more geese than the other? Well, as it turns out, there are more birds over there. The geese on the long side happened to be MAGA. This is not rocket science, even though the incoming regime is bringing along Sissy Space-X. The other seemingly incalculable question is "where did those fifteen million Democrat votes go that were there from the 2020 election?"

You may not want to consider this, but every bit of math I can muster up suggests that these people did not vote. At least they did not vote for the Democratic candidate. More geese on one side. 

Is Quincy really necessary? 

Who's Sorry Now?

 I suppose many of you out there may be wondering what I thought or felt about the results of the 2024 Presidential Election. You may have come here Wednesday morning, hoping that I would have some solace or outrage for you. Instead you found me whining about the onset of my decrepitude. Maybe on Thursday.

Nope. 

You see, the reality of this blog is that it runs on the pre-digested thoughts and feelings of an obsessive individual. Hence, I write these things days in advance. Usually three. By the time you read my eulogy of Quincy Jones and yet another wide shot at Young Tucker Carlson and his lunatic ravings, you might be wondering what happened. 

Did I just straight up ignore how the United States as a squirming mass got in line to vote for the misogynistic, libelous, narcissist who used to have a TV game show? 

No. I did not. The words you are currently reading come straight from the early morning realization that we, as a nation, chose to give the convicted felon a chance to pardon himself and fully implement Project 2025, becoming the self-proclaimed "dictator on day one." The depth of this event will be felt over the next few months as the second Trumpreich lurches into action. All of those hateful, ignorant things that have been shouted form the stage in rallies across the country over the past few months are on their way to becoming policy. 

I don't blame Kamala Harris.

I don't blame Joe Biden.

I don't blame Donald Trump.

The blame lands squarely on us. U.S.

We elected the guy who announced years ago that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and his poll numbers would go up. Ignoring that warning and standing pat by letting him continue to "weave" his wicked spell over those he frightened and riled up was not, as it turns out, a good choice. Laughing at his antics while preparing a rational response was a bad choice. 

Who's laughing now? 

Demons

 Hey folks. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but stupid people have always existed. Like the genius who decided to glue that first square of toilet paper to the rest of the roll? They continue to exist, and it would seem that we are not supporting Darwin by giving many of these empty vessels their own shows on TV and other media. 

"I have never met a person who can isolate the moment when nuclear technology became known to man. So, where did it come from exactly? It's very clear to me these are demonic." Thus is the confused jabber that slithered out from the slit beneath Young Tucker Carlson's nose just a few days ago. It was part of a free-wheeling exchange with ex-convict Steve Bannon who resumed his podcast after being released from prison. Young Tuck's insistence of the existence of demons comes shortly after he shared an account of being "physically mauled" by otherworldly forces a year and a half ago. He claimed that he awoke scarred and bloody, with claw marks across his body.

The former Fox News Idiot was supporting his belief that "Nuclear weapons are demonic, there’s no upside to them at all, and anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant or doing the bidding of the forces that created nuclear technology in the first place, which were not human forces obviously.” Which is not a series of viewpoints that I feel the need to argue with, until that last sentence. The forces involved in creating nuclear weapons were indelibly human. Finding new and different ways to obliterate is a time-honored tradition among homo-sapiens. Part of the way we prove our dominance over other smart monkeys is to pick up that jawbone of a tapir to club them into submission. 

Nuclear weapons just happen to live somewhere on the far end of the evolutionary spectrum from the jawbone of a tapir. 

Now, the next question might be, "Are there demons among us?" 

Sure there are. And many of them are former Fox News employees who have felt some inexplicable calling to the Word. Or maybe they just needed an explanation for that rough night they had a few months back and their spouses needed an excuse that sounded contemplative. 

Or perhaps Young Tuck is looking to take over for Robert Morris. 

Listen

 If you were to make a recording version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, you could make it a lot harder by using someone other than Quincy Jones as the Nexus. 

Mister Jones passed away at the ripe old and seemingly indestructible age of ninety-one. Over a career that spanned seventy years, he worked with just about anyone of note in the music business. And he made everyone with whom he worked sound better. Even the Beatles, whom he once referred to as "the worst musicians in the world." 

Which did not stop him from working with Ringo on his Sentimental Journey album. And supplanting Mister Starr's drumming with a studio musician. Because he was a perfectionist, artists trusted Quincy to deliver their best work. From Frank Sinatra to Snoop Dogg, Lesley Gore to Chaka Khan, Quincy Jones' influence is a mile wide. 

If the only project he ever worked on was We Are The World, he would be one of the faces on the pop music Mount Rushmore. If all he did was produce Michael Jackson's Thriller, he would have access to the throne. If all he had had ever done was write the music that would eventually play beneath the opening credits of Austin Powers - International Man Of Mystery, his greatness could not be measured.

He did all that and more. He was a film and television producer. He brought Alice Walker's Color Purple to the screen. Twice. And once on Broadway. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the twentieth century by Time Magazine. He nominated for an Oscar for the score for In Cold Blood. He ran out of space on his mantle for the Grammys he has won. Twenty-eight of them. Nominated for a Grammy eighty times. You can't win 'em all. But a pretty fair share. 

And now he's gone to that big recording studio in the sky. I'm guessing that the heavenly choirs will be just a little more in tune and sing with just a little more groove from now on. Quincy Jones stomped, sang, danced and paraded across the Terra. I would say that he will be missed, but you'll still be able to here him. 

Everywhere. 

Disintegration

 It does occur to me now that I have some decisions to make.

I have spent my adult life with those closest to me kidding about how "you'll never stop working, will you?" I chuckle, knowingly, and push the comment to the side. They understand something about me which I have not fully reckoned. 

One need look no further than this blog for evidence of just how correct this assertion is. What started as a lark nineteen years ago has become essentially an avocation. Eleven years ago I was interviewed for a documentary short about "megabloggers." At that time I said that the reason I kept on writing and writing was that no one had bothered to tell me to stop. 

Apparently, this is still the case. Which translates roughly into the realm of my chosen career. As yet, no one has come up to me and asked me to stop teaching. Part of my plan has always to be "value added." Sure, I can teach kids how to use computers and keep them from jumping off the top of the play structure, but I will also pick up the occasional rodent corpse and climb up on the roof to try and figure out where that last soccer ball went. As an elementary school teacher I have found that there is not much that is beneath me. This is how I believe that I have become invaluable. 

But to be honest, the last time I was up there, looking down on the playground, faces of children staring up at me, I heard their words more distinctly: "Mister Caven, what are you doing up there?"

Sixty-two years old, creaky knees and a growing sense of my own mortality at the top of a ladder that for some reason I seem to be the only person who knows how to use it. Plummeting from this precipitous height would probably not kill me, but the damage to my vintage frame would be significant. Perhaps enough to keep me from climbing back up on the roof.  

Because eventually I really should stop doing that. Like clambering up in the trees in our yard to mount our holiday lights, there will come a day when my part of this grand experiment will be that of consultant rather than the astronaut. As I find each time that I bend over to pick something off the floor, I discover that the ground has moved further away. I indicate this by making one of those not-so-discrete groans that have become more a part of my catalogue of sounds. 

Which doesn't mean I will actually stop doing any of these gymnastics. It just means that I can start to ponder how to cope with the appearance of those folks with the clipboards, wearing their sad faces and politely showing me the way to the door. 

Over? Did You Say Over?

 Election day. 

Finally. 

All that doom-scrolling and all that shock and all that dismay comes to a head.

At last. 

Except none of us really expects there to be a moment at which today's proceedings will result in a peaceful transfer of power. Four years ago, a new and despicable trend began to gain traction in this great land of ours: election deniers. It was an easy enough shift for many to make after the doubt that was sown by deniers of science in the wake of COVID-19. Those who were convinced that the pandemic was a hoax were easily nudged into the belief that a presidential election could be stolen. 

I was speaking to a friend over the weekend about about how quickly this flat surface became a slippery slope. I compared it to Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. Because this would-be terrorist decided to try and blow up a plane with the soles of his kicks, we have all been forced for nearly a quarter century to take our shoes off when we want to board an airplane. Because a former game show host and enfant terrible could not conceive that the second election he participate in would result in a loss, we have all been taken for a ride on the exception express, the one that says we can't trust the results of our democratic process. Because that former game show host can't do math.

Or understand science.

Or think of anyone but himself. 

So we sit. And we wait. For the storm to pass. 

And wait.

And wait. 

For a new day. 

Choice

 If you are reading this now and have yet to make your choice for who will be our next President of the United States, first of all, you must be new. Secondly, if you have been with me all along and perhaps been sitting on the fence thinking, "I don't know, there's so much good on both sides," then maybe you haven't been actually reading this blog so much as looking at the pictures. 

Ha, ha. Just a little Entropical Paradise humor there. This is the place where my thousand words tend to take up the space where a picture might be. For a sadly great majority of the past eight years, those words have been that of a warning: Warning against letting our country fall prey to the xenophobia and misogyny promoted by the big Orange Cabal. 

Which is not to say that I want you to simply vote against a convicted felon and his "concepts of a plan" to Make America A Dystopian Wasteland. I want you to vote for Kamala Harris, a woman who has spent her life working for the people. District Attorney. Attorney General. Senator. Vice President. There is an arc to her story that is precisely the kind that we hope to celebrate with our children when we tell them, "If you work hard and stay true to your vision, someday you could be President of the United States."

And let's be honest about just what that means: Taking over the reins of our troubled nation at this point will be a lot like being in charge of The Reconstruction after our Civil War. The divides that exist within our people and its institutions could not be more stark. But Kamala Harris continues to insist that those things that threaten to tear us apart are insignificant compared to those that bring us together. 

This is what I believe. This is what I believe Kamala Harris can do for our less-than-united states. The American Dream belongs to all of us, and yes it needs to be made available to those who seek to become a part of it. The contributions of black, brown, Muslim, female, LGBTQ+, left, right, white, red and blue are all significant and need to be brought together not in a literal snapshot of what our founding fathers imagined two hundred forty-eight years ago, but a living, moving panorama of possibility. 

We won't go back. 

Nor should we. 

As the poets from Akron once urged us, "It's time to go forward, move ahead, and give the past a slip."

Vote as if your life depended it on it. And your children's life. 

And your cat's. 

Whose Idea Was This?

 "I've got it!"

"What is it this time?"

"The perfect photo op."

"That's what you said about getting him into an apron inside a closed McDonald's and having him pretend to make french fries."

"No really. This one's going to be a huge hit."

"It had better be. That debacle at Madison Square Garden is all anyone wants to talk about right now."

"It's not about dogs and cats."

"Or geese, right?"

"Yeah, well I'm not the one who suggested that we get 'that guy from the Tom Brady roast' to come and make racist jokes about everyone we're trying to convince that we aren't racist."

"True. And maybe holding a 'white guys' rally at the site of the biggest Nazi rally in American history may have been a little short sighted."

"At least we kept the swastikas to a minimum."

"I'm pretty sure Elon was just a yelp or two away from shouting 'Sieg Heil'..."

"That's why this one is such a slam-dunk. It won't take any additional special guests. Just our guy."

"Okay, lay it on me."

"Picture this: Our guy is standing out on the tarmac -"

"In front of a big jet -"

"No, no, no. We want to appeal to the common man."

"So what do you have in mind?"

"We get him to stand out there and give a few minutes of 'weave,' then the truck shows up."

"Truck? The boss loves trucks!"

"Don't you know it. But here's the spin: It's a trash truck."

"Trash truck?"

"Yeah. With the logo painted big across the side."

"Where the trash goes?"

"Exactly."

"I don't know how this could miss." 

Tears For Teri

 I believe that Michael Dorsey should have ended up with Sandy Lester. 

If you are unfamiliar with those names, you might recognize the actors who portrayed these characters from Tootsie: Dustin Hoffman and Teri Garr. If you are familiar with the film, you know that the movie, as played on screens for more than forty years has Michael/Dustin finally getting a chance with the object of his desire played by Jessica Lange. He does this with one of the most ham-handed flurry of "romantic" dialogue committed to celluloid: "You don't have to. She's right here. And she misses you. Look, you don't know me from Adam. But I was a better man with you, as a woman... than I ever was with a woman, as a man. You know what I mean? I just gotta learn to do it without the dress. At this point, there might be an advantage to my wearing pants. The hard part's over, you know? We were already... good friends."

(retching sounds) 

And not just because it seemed like a completely fantastical leap even for a romantic comedy, but because of the way Michael/Dustin just casts his other friend Sandy/Teri aside in order to be with this ridiculous only in Hollywood longshot. 

Full disclosure: I love Teri Garr, and while I am impressed with the classic beauty and acting chops of Ms. Lange, I know that I would have made a different choice than Mr. Hoffman. I would have picked Sandy in a heartbeat, not just because of my not-so-latent affection for Ms. Garr but because of the sacrifices Sandy made for her pal and not-so-secret crush Michael Dorsey. 

I was familiar with Teri Garr from her numerous TV appearances, including appearing in an episode of the original series of Star Trek that might have become a spin-off. And she was Phoebe's mom on Friends. But mostly she was and will always be in my heart for her sweet and naïve turn as Froodrick Fronkensteen's lovely assistant, Inga. I was twelve, and I was smitten. 

She added just the right flustered feminist counterpoint to Michael Keaton's Mr. Mom. She was the reason I bothered to take a peek at Mom And Dad Save The World. Teri Garr's appearances on the David Letterman Show were appointment television. 

Teri went to her reward this past Tuesday. She stomped on the Terra, but I guess not hard enough to get through that thick skull of Dustin Hoffman's. She will be missed. Aloha, Ms. Garr. 

Show Stopper

 The quiet part isn't quiet anymore. 

The Republican Party, in their continued and impassioned mistake of going all-in on backing a convicted felon, has become in words of (checks notes) Hillary Clinton "deplorable." To be more specific, the former New York Senator, First Lady and Secretary of State once referred to "half" of Trump supporters as fitting a "basket of deplorables," while the other half are people who feel the government has let them down and need understanding and empathy.

Eight years later, I am not sure if that ratio still holds, and I don't know how much understanding and empathy I have left for the crew that put together the rally in Madison Square Garden last weekend. A parade of speakers showed up on the stage that was already being referred to as a "Nazi Rally" to confirm these assertions. One of the lowlights of the show was "comedian" Tony Hinchcliffe who let this one fly: “There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico."

In a city that more than half a million Puerto Ricans call "home," this little jibe was met with immediate blowback not just from those who live there, but across the country. And it wasn't just Puerto Ricans who were outraged. Human beings from across the rainbow of our great nation voiced their displeasure. Which didn't keep Tony from falling back on the lamest response possible: "Can't you guys take a joke?" 

Well, Tony, here's the deal: If it were a joke in the first place, then we might stand a chance of "taking it." And if on your way out you hadn't managed to tick off a list of other minorities to degrade, then maybe there would be some claim to "humor."  Another speaker said that Kamala Harris was managed by “pimp handlers” and said of Democrats that “we need to slaughter these other people.” Very former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, as did several others, that Democrats were behind attempts to kill Donald Trump. Another speaker called Harris “the devil” and “the antichrist.”

Stop it guys. You're just too darn funny. 

Get it? That was a joke. I was being ironic. I was suggesting that something was happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this. 

Counting the days. 

Run For Your Life

 It's here!

Not Election Day, but a reasonable facsimilie!

Halloween lets us know that life is scary, creepy things happen all the time, and the dead walk the earth. Most of them wearing red baseball hats. 

I have spent the last year feeling low level anxiety about the race for the White House, but over the past month or so it has ramped up to full-on terror. I find myself repeating the phrase, "It's only a movie," under my breath. 

I have been told for months now that this is the most important election of my lifetime. That lifetime that includes the election and re-election of such notables as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. I also bore witness to the defeat of the first major party female presidential candidate, and we know how that ended up. The idea that this low-charisma bronze tan racist might find his way back to Pennsylvania Avenue for anything but prison release work detail picking up litter after Kamala Harris' inauguration is frightening in the extreme. 

A quick historical note: There was a time when the zombies that appeared in our nightmares were shambling moaners with little on their to-do list than shuffling about, clawing at the occasional door, and eating the brains of those too dumb to outrun them. Then Danny Boyle, who had already exposed us to the "fun" of drug addiction in Trainspotting and the joy of taking a relaxing hike in the desert southwest in 127 Hours, decided to make his zombies fast. And aggressive. This undead crew gave up shuffling for sprinting. 

Thanks Danny. 

Just like the velociraptors that figured out how to open doors, the MAGAts have organized themselves into a demented, frothing, crime against nature. Like those zombies, we keep hacking them up (metaphorically speaking) and they keep coming back to "life." What do they want? Only our brains. Because they're envious of what they don't have. They may be dumb, but they're fast. 

Can you run? Run to the ballot box. Stop this horror in it's tracks. 

Taxing

 So, here's the deal: I don't really want a tax cut. I understand this is a big deal for a lot of people, getting a reprieve from paying the government any part of the money for which we all work so hard. 

Most of us are working hard. And ironically enough, it's those who tend not to do the traditional "hard work" of building things and breaking things and putting things back together who are the ones who get the attention when it comes to things like tax breaks. Economists will tell you that's because the percentages of the paychecks these laborers make the big bucks that can help pay for battleships and school lunches and the like. It's the billionaires who can not only afford to pay lawyers and accountants to starve off those nasty tax bills, but can also expect special treatment from the powers that be to lighten their "fair share." 

Meanwhile, you've got folks like me who have found themselves after a few decades in the workforce, trying to figure out where I will land once I decide to stop working. Did I save enough with all my tax-deferred accounts so that I can live comfortably into my even older age? Will there be enough tucked away in programs like Medicaid and Social Security to keep me from having to find a job that I can do in my golden years to pay for the lavish lifestyle that would allow me to enjoy three meals a day for me and my wife, perhaps on some sort of alternating basis. 

The thing is, I continue to vote for things that cost money. I vote, essentially, to raise my own taxes. I am not voting to lighten my burden to the community. It could be that my career in public education has made me ever more convinced that providing for those who have less is what we all need. Battleships. School lunches. Life. LIberty. The pursuit of happiness. It's not tax free. 

Fit To Print

 Turner Classic Movies did me a favor, of sorts, by broadcasting All The President's Men last Friday evening. I say "of sorts" because as great a film as I believe it is, nearly fifty years after it premiered, it appears today as a bit of a fantasy. 

Fantasy? 

Yes. Fantasy. 

The story of how newspaper reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward helped to bring down the Nixon administration after the crimes of Watergate is meticulously recreated from one of the all-time great investigative journalism triumphs of all time. 

Fantasy? 

Well, it just so happens that it was also this past Friday when the editors of The Washington Post, home of the legacy of Woodward and Bernstein, announced that they would not be endorsing a presidential candidate for the first time in thirty-six years. If the "bright spot" here is that the Wahsington Post did not choose to endorse the convicted felon, than things have gotten much darker than any of us had imagined. Is the mountain of evidence that has been laid out by media outlets and the Orange One's former employees that the Republican candidate is somehow insufficient for those in the fourth estate to make what is essentially an existential call? 

Here's something that wasn't true about the Washington Post in 1972. At that time, the newspaper was not owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos. The programmers at TCM may have had this in mind when immediately after All The President's Men, they showed Citizen Kane. "I think it would be fun so run a newspaper." Indeed. 

Sleep Spending

 It was a pretty straightforward dream:

My son, who loves all things cars, had come into a considerable amount of cash. Apparently he had not only received a solid promotion at work, but he had also been saving money straight along, leaving him with a substantial chunk to spend. Stimulating the economy, and all that. 

His mother and I went with him to the Ferrari showroom where initially he was treated with mild disdain because he did not, in his T-shirt and jeans, look like the person who would normally be browsing the Italian supercar line. 

And yet, there he was, bankroll in hand, ready to throw down hundreds of thousands of dollars on a fine performance machine. His parents stood by in joy and admiration as he talked to the sales representative in ways that showed that he wasn't jut there to spend, he was there to invest. 

Once the deal was made, lattes were sipped, contracts signed and all those bills counted, the shiny gray vehicle was lowered down to the ground floor of the facility where he took ownership. His proud parents waited on the curb to see if they would be offered a ride. 

Eventually, we were. 

I don't remember much about the back seat, but I knew my son was happy. It was only when I woke up that it occurred to me that I probably should have made some dad move like suggesting that he spend far less on a new car of a more sensible variety. He could put the rest of the money away for a rainy day. He could be more responsible. 

Because that's what dads do. And moms. In spite of all the chaos that our family bank accounts have experienced over the years, being adults we somehow feel that we know best. About spending money anyway. 

But maybe not about how to be happy. 

I'm glad that in my dream I managed to be a better parent. 

Goofus And Gallant

 One candidate shows up to a town hall that might have been a second presidential debate. 

The other guy shows up at a closed McDonald's to make pretend fries for pretend customers. 

One candidate presents an eighty-two page plan for an "opportunity economy." 

The other guy drones on about the manhood of a professional golfer.

One candidate stands up for health care for all Americans. 

The other guy has "concepts of a plan."

One candidate appears on most every media outlet, seeking to spread her message. 

The other guy continues to trot out his same dog and pony show to his red-capped legion.

One candidate is a prosecutor.

The other guy is a felon.

One candidate is proud of her place in the melting pot of America. 

The other guy is a xenophobic racist. 

One candidate looks to bring people to the middle.

The other guy denigrates those who disagree with him.

One candidate looks to the future. 

The other guy is stuck somewhere in the past. 

One candidate is working tirelessly for your vote.

The other guy assumes if you don't vote for him, you're part of a conspiracy. 

One candidate deserves to be President of the United States. 

The other guy never did. 

Bottom LIne

 The guys who owned the Arby's franchise where I worked went by the names "Mike and Cowboy." To this day I do not know their actual names, nor could I at the time distinguish one from the other. All I knew was that every so often these two jokers showed up in the back room of our store, where we worked as a well-oiled and periodically drug-addled team. They came ostensibly to check in on their investment, which was humming along just fine thank you very much. We were a streamlined operation serving two to three customers every two to three minutes and we were all very clear on the concept of "clean as you go." Compared to a lot of fast food restaurants, the crew stuck around. Years at a time. We had one family in particular whose offspring used Arby's as a rite of passage. When they were old enough to don the brown polyester dashiki, they were welcomed in and given a shift. 

Mike and Cowboy didn't do the hiring. They were far too "busy" to be mired in such minutiae. Instead they turned their laser-like business focus on the things that really mattered. Like the time they used our prep area to conduct an experiment. They made a large order of french fries and a small in a small portable fryer. They weighed them both and were gleeful at the result. The small order was within grams of the large. The creepiest part about this was that they made this discovery at one of the few Arby's that did not serve french fries. 

Mike and Cowboy were my window into corporate greed. 

And over time, they served as a model for Derek Giacomantonio, the McDonald's franchise owner who invited a convicted felon to stage a fifteen minute training video at their fry station. While Mister Giacomantonio was quick to point out that the visit from the twice-impeached former "president" did not constitute an endorsement, he didn't have any response to questions about the fact that particular restaurant failed its last health inspection. 

Then came the avalanche of negative Yelp reviews. Followed up by an E. coli outbreak that spread across the Golden Arches. Consequently, McDonald's stock plummeted. 

I'm pretty sure Mike and Cowboy wouldn't have let that guy server fries without washing his hands or wearing a hair net. If they had been interested in staffing. 

At all. 

How Much?

 I pledge allegiance

to the check that Elon will write me

and to those principles

I left behind

I only care

about the cash in my pocket

This revamped version comes to us via the raffle that Elongated Mush is currently running. “We want to try to get over a million, maybe two million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. We are going to be awarding one million dollars randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election." One might pause briefly to wonder about the pronoun choice, but I expect that since corporations are people and Elon has enough money to be a plural, why not?

If you're one of those people who read that pitch and wondered if this is entirely legal, fret not. 

It isn't. 

Federal law makes it a crime for anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting.”

But never mind all that legal mumbo jumbo. All you have to do is add your name to a list that says it is a  "Petition In Favor of Free Speech and the Right To Bear Arms." Don't spend too much time reading all that fine print at the bottom. You support the Constitution, don't you? Specifically those first two amendments, the ones that Elongated Mush, an immigrant who may or may not have eaten a dog, would like you to care about more than anything else. And since he's been bounding around on stages supporting one particular candidate, he might prefer if you would cast your vote in that general direction. 

Does any of this leave a bad taste in your mouth? Like Freedom is now for sale, and the chance to be a millionaire seems totally worth it unless you consider that by the time you slice off the twenty-two percent federal tax plus whatever your state might need for your privilege to say you "won big" by putting your name on that dotted line, you probably won't be shifting brackets anytime soon. 

Would it be worth subverting the democratic process? How much is your vote worth? 

"In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash" - Jean Shepherd

Tenth Month

 October. 

Leaves collected once upon an autumn's day pressed between the pages of a dictionary to remind me that Fall does not have to be a bad thing. I continue to appreciate this gesture made by a friend once upon a time in an attempt to relieve me of the dread.

The dead.

When I was still in college, one of the funniest human beings I ever knew died. On the twenty-fourth of October. At that time I wore his passing as a badge of honor. I was a survivor. I had somehow bypassed the reaper, giving me an absurd appreciation for Blue Oyster Cult. In those days I insisted upon those around me sharing in my grief. For a decade I carried around this outsized emotion that I could not seem to shake. 

Moving to California, getting married and having a kid made me reconsider this behavior. Those autumn leaves moved with me to my new home where the lines dividing seasons were less clear than the emphatic snow on Halloween where I was born. I learned to savor the way the World Series brought with it the sacks of candy that we were honor bound to share with the children who rang our doorbell. We had a dog who would bark every time that bell was rung. 

Then, the bell rang for her. She chose to make her exit coincidentally on October 24. Just a pointed reminder of our collective mortality. I tried not to connect this to the November passing of my father, but when my mother chose the middle of October to shuffle off her mortal coil, I began to accept the metaphor that is Fall. 

Making room for the Spring that will come and remind me of my son's birthday and all the rejuvenation that comes with it.

I accept the monument to the way things have stacked up. I am patient and extra aware of how things get darker with an eye toward the horizon. The sun going down just a litter earlier. I sigh and wait for the world to catch up with itself on the other side.  

October. 

What Are You Going To Do?

 "I think it was a poor choice of approaches to remembering my father, but what are you going to do?”

That was how Arnold Palmer's daughter chose to explain her reaction to the former game show host and convicted felon's "tribute" to her late father. The man who was impeached twice when he was president and would like to have that job again chose to regale his followers in Latrobe, Pennsylvania with a twelve minute digression about hometown hero Mister Palmer. A golf enthusiast himself, the adjudicated rapist chose not to discuss Arnold Palmer's exploits on the links, but rather his appearance in the showers. 

Once again, I ask for the nation at large: How is this race even close? 

It was at this same event that the convicted felon referred to his opponent as a "**** vice president." One might imagine that the usual rapier-like wit employed by this seventy-eight year old serial adulterer has become compromised by the clock ticking on the wall. Time is running out for "the weave." The abrupt insertion of what the kids at my school refer to with mild shock as "the S word" suggests that the time for subtlety has passed. 

Witness the Orange One's appearance earlier this week on Fox Und Freunds when he told the folks on the couch with him that he intended to close the Department of Education, and that he would deny federal funding to any district that didn't teach the things he wanted them to. He also spent fifteen minutes making french fries at a Philadelphia area McDonalds.

Just to prove a point. 

What point? 

Probably only those who are truly tuned into "the weave" understand exactly what the Republican candidate for "president" is attempting to do. The same guy who dissed Detroit at a campaign stop in (checks notes) Detroit. The same guy who referred to the insurrection of January 6, 2021 a "a day of love." Which capped off a week that began with his MAGA Dance Party. 

Some might consider this a poor choice for a candidate running for president. But what are you going to do? 

Sadly

 This is a sad story. It is about one of the students at the school where I work. Perhaps the most significant thing about me spinning this tale is that I work at a school where sad stories abound. 

Linda is in fifth grade. She, like many of her peers, has begun to find her way in the burgeoning social structure created by fifth grade girls. So much so that she had her parents sign her up for the after school program where she could spend even more time hanging out with her new crew. 

Which is not the sad part. That part is coming next. 

This past Wednesday afternoon, Linda's father showed up ostensibly to drive her home. It was our Admin Assistant that first encountered him when he appeared in the office to ask where LInda was. Our Admin Assistant told Linda's father she would go and check. She could easily have paged LInda or called the classroom in which she was with her class. Instead she went in to tell our principal that dad reeked of alcohol and was slurring his speech. 

Word travels quickly in an elementary school. The after school program director was notified, who happened to be standing next to me so I went with her to the front doors to where dad had retreated having figured out that things might not be going as smoothly as he had hoped. 

Now there were five grownups standing on the steps watching dad's retreat. He hurled insults, threats and curses back at us. Meanwhile, the decision was made not to tell Linda that her father was out front causing a scene. Nobody was going to let her get in a motor vehicle with an obviously impaired adult. Even if he was her father. 

The saddest part was that, as I have mentioned, news travels fast. Little pitchers have big ears, as the saying goes. Some of those little pitchers started whispering about what they thought they were pretty sure they saw going on in front of the school. A couple grownups realized what was about to happen and moved to keep Linda from being the focal point of a wave of unpleasant attention. 

On this mission, we were not completely successful. The embarrassment vortex had been opened. The only thing that saved Linda from complete despair was that her mother was contacted and showed up quickly to rescue her. But this was only Wednesday. She still had to come back to school the next day. To answer all those questions that had to come up. 

The good news? On Thursday there were other competing dramas that spawned their own questions. But Linda will get to live with that afternoon for weeks to come. 

Nobody Knows

  “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics." This bit of whimsy is most often attributed to Mark Twain. Mister Twain insisted that the quote originated from British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. 

Whomever first uttered these words or committed them to paper is the person I have to thank for my ongoing attitude to the emails flooding my inbox each day. Depending on which one I open first, I might believe that I am contributing to the almost certain obliteration of the MAGA movement. If I click on one up the line, I might discover that the Harris campaign is struggling to stay afloat and my twenty dollars will go directly to keeping the lights on. 

The truth is that there is no objective truth. We can thank the adjudicated rapist and former game show host for that. Polls taken around this coming election do not begin to describe all the vagaries surrounding the contest. The suggestion that there are still "undecided voters" that might tip the balance one way or the other seems patently ridiculous. Those who will make a choice have already done so. The skewed results being reported by this firm and that network reflect only the sad ambivalence created by the insurrection of January 6, 2021. 

There are few, if any Americans who were around back then who expect that the night of November 5 will bring a clear and decisive winner to this race. If the past few weeks have taught us anything it's that counting ballots will be only the beginning. Numbers, as we have learned, mean very little. Which is why the former game show host fixed the game to end in his favor by stacking the Supreme Court with "Justices" friendly to his grift. Those who drank the Kool-Aid back in 2016 for the most part have not altered their views. Sure, we get stories of anomalies like the guy who threw away his red baseball cap once he realized that he had nothing to gain from wearing it. Just like those frightened men who talk a big game but are still terrified of the notion of passing the highest office in the land to a woman. 

Meanwhile, we must all take comfort from the words not of Disraeli or Twain, but of screenwriter extraordinaire William Goldman who once said, "Nobody knows anything." Hold tight folks, it's going to be a bumpy couple of weeks. 

Or more. 

Nighty Night

 Did you sleep well? 

This is a question that I invariably answer with this response: "I made a few mistakes."

As someone who has spent most of his life battling that wall of sleep, I can say that I have finally reached a point in my life where closing my eyes and drifting away has become a solid part of my routine. The biggest difference in the way I head off to slumberland now is, in part, keeping a solid rhythm. Bedtime has become a much earlier affair as I have passed into my sixties. Ten o'clock is "staying up," and most evenings I have retired by nine. 

The timing is useful because it gives me a chance to look at a book. Reading is fundamental. Turning pages and holding a real-life collection of someone else's thoughts helps to distance me from the ones I keep in my head. While very effective, this does not always keep my brain from laboring over any particular day's events. Trouble at school or an appliance that isn't following its prime directive are chief among those speed bumps in my expressway to Snoresville. I try to take my father's words to heart, the ones he spoke to me when I was just nine or ten years old, struggling to drift off. "You can't do anything about it right now. And if you spoil your rest, you won't be much good at making it better in the morning." That was more than fifty years ago, and I'm still trying to argue with him about it. As I try to go to sleep. 

Another thing that has make it easier to get the rest I need is that I spent so much time in my misspent youth trying to stay awake. "I'll sleep when I'm dead," was the phrase that I used to trot out in my party-boy heyday. Some of those late nights that morphed into early mornings gave me a rich sense of the value of just a couple hours of shuteye. As my father suggested, I wasn't a tremendous amount of use after lopping off the bulk of the time I should have been recharging my batteries, but I made it through. Eliminating the potential for a hangover was also a clever part of my overall sleep hygiene. No more passing out and waking up with the Anvil Chorus playing in my head. 

It could be that the advent of my decrepitude and the introduction of my CPAP machine forcing air up my nose into my brain gave me yet another advantage: not waking myself up with the roar of thunder that I acquired through genetics: my father's house-rattling snores. But the most likely reason for me to be able to go to sleep more easily these days is that I am bored. I've seen most everything. Even jury duty is a hill upon which I refuse to die. It's just another part of my busy day. After which I can look forward to a few hours of being not so busy. 

Until the sun comes up yet again. 

Show Biz

 A long time ago, Steve Martin suggested that the banjo could have saved Richard Nixon. He suggested that when he got off Air Force One, he could simply say, "I'd like to talk about politics, but first a little Foggy Mountain Breakdown!"

It could be that somewhere in the haze of The Orange One's delirium last weekend this was the seed that grew into the half-hour dance party where the convicted felon and blithering ninny hosted rally goers who were told they were attending a "town hall meeting." After a couple of softball questions, the host and former game show host suggested, “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” The sound crew took their cue and played a forty minute playlist that included James Brown’s It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World, the Village People’s YMCA, Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor, and Luciano Pavarotti’s rendition of Ave Maria. 

Ostensibly, the change was made because two attendees at the Pennsylvania rally had fainted, causing concern. Of course, what better way to show concern for your fellow MAGAt than to crank up the tunes? 

This odd debacle took place just a couple of days after the twice-impeached former "president" had stranded hundreds of his followers in the desert near the Coachella concert site. He provided more than twenty buses to get his fans out to the Southern California rally, but when it was time to leave, reports from those left standing out in the dark without water, food or bathroom facilities were left with just one or two busses to ferry the crowd back to the parking lot. Six miles away. Suddenly, Woodstock seemed like a really well-planned event. That was three days of peace and love, after all, not the sort of experience for which MAGAts line up. 

Rumors swirl as to why all of this chaos was meted out to the fans of this "very stable genius": a man with a gun was arrested near Coachella, the bus company in California was not paid, the star of the show was ill-prepared for any sort of back and forth question and answer session, and people were fainting, and the guy is seventy-eight years old.

If only there was a banjo. 

Boomerang

 Nothing golden stays, but something blue might find its way back. 

"Hi, we lost a wallet and a California Poppy earring at the game on Saturday night. The earring was probably lost near an entrance. The black wallet could have fallen behind a seat in the second row from the top n section 119, or on the field. "

This was the email my wife sent to the folks at the Oakland Athletics Guest Services office. It was not a lot different from the one that I sent, with the possible exception of her identifying the wallet as black, rather than the deep blue that I remembered. 

She gave it to me, after all. And this one particular pair of shorts has had a history of leaving my wallet in all manner of inconvenient places, mostly in the back support of my office chair. But about a month ago, when my family attended one of the very last Oakland A's games, I wore those shorts and somewhere in the middle of all that nostalgic reverie that back pocket on those shorts did their trick one more time. And this time after exhaustive searches of my chair in the office as well as the obvious places and many of those less obvious it was determined that the wallet was gone.

But not forgotten. 

My wife never gave up hope. Even as I cancelled my credit card and replaced my driver's license, she held out hope. Even as I made mild peace with the idea that the memories I had shoved into that fistful of leather were now just that: memories. Even as I moved into the Snoopy wallet she bought me as a replacement. 

She got a reply from the helpful folks at Guest Services. "Did the wallet belong to you or did it have another name on it? Please let me know." That other name was mine, correctly identified by my wife just a few days ago. "We do have David's wallet in our inventory. We can ship it to you free of charge! Please let me know the best address to send it to."

This past Monday, the UPS driver handed me a package with my wife's name on it. This happens a lot, so I took it inside and handed it over to her. As it turned out, the parcel was for me. This was a happy turn of events that confirmed the general sense of goodness in the universe. That is my reason for telling you all of this. 

Because who knows what tomorrow will bring. 

Response

 A bridge too far. 

This was the phrase that came to mind as I was reading an article describing how FEMA workers had to stop clearing mud and debris from the recent hurricane that ravaged the southeast. In North Carolina, National Guard troops ran into armed militia saying they were "hunting FEMA." Further investigation led to the arrest of William Parsons of Bostic. Parsons was charged with "going armed to the terror of the public." Combine this with the flurry of misinformation being passed along by various elements regarding the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and you've got the recipe for a Perfect Storm Response. 

Rumors such as the agency is running out of money, that if victims apply for assistance their property will be seized, FEMA aid will impact Social Security and other benefits, and a particular favorite of those on the hard, red right: FEMA is spending disaster recovery funds on sheltering immigrants at the border. All of this fearmongering is like pouring itching powder on America's trigger finger. Imagine going down to help out your fellow man by shoveling mud out of people's communities only to dodge bullets while doing so.

It takes a special sort of evil to intentionally stir up chaos for those who have been sent in to try and manage it. Who cares if those directly affected by the disaster don't get the support they need as long as a conspiracy can bloom in its place? 

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. We are just a few weeks away from bearing witness to seeing just how ferocious the divide that exists in our country truly is. The well-armed militia that our founding fathers once hoped would help maintain order in the midst of unrest has become the engine by which factions will be further divided while we all run for cover. 

Not from a hurricane or wildfire, but from our fellow Americans. 

Time to put down the guns and start picking up the shovels to get some of this manure back where it came from. 

The Blame Game

 What happens if the good guys lose?

Part of the problem with speaking things into being is that I can now be held accountable for a Republican Victory in November. I don't know if the butterfly wings flapping of my mouth can truly influence the outcome of a presidential election but in a contest as close as this one is purported to be, it might be nice to have someone to blame. 

Blame me. 

Or blame Joe Biden for pridefully holding on to his dream of leading the country for another four years. Maybe point a finger at the Teamsters who are refusing to endorse the Democratic candidate for the first time since 2000. Perhaps the difference was the confounding appearance of Robert Kennedy Jr. that knocked things off kilter. 

But I think the most likely reason of all is that there are a whole bunch of deplorables out there who don't mind if they elect a "dictator on day one." A red-hatted mob who are willing to give up their rights and their livelihoods to satisfy the ego of a convicted felons. You could hold those who would rather ban books than read them accountable. These are the ones who are willing to turn a blind eye to all the ways that their candidate has proved himself to be unfit for the office he seems just as ready to steal as he is to earn. 

Or you can blame me for imagining what life might be like if a world run by MAGAts. The word dystopian comes to mind. Another word: despotic. How about oppressive? I could go on and on, but instead I will encourage us all to look forward to a world where Donald Trump is just a memory. A bad dream from which we all woke up one day and can only remember as that time we came so close not to living in a dream, but in a nightmare. 

If the good guys win, you can thank me. 

Later. 

Always

 "Mommies always come back."

These were the words we used to soothe our little boy when his mother left to go out to do her sundry activities and left him with the guy he would refer to as "dad," his father. It served as cold comfort to a kid who was very attached to the lady who brought him into this life. It came as a relief, later, when it turned out this aphorism was in fact true. Mommy did come back, much to the relief of the son and the one he would refer to as "dad."

It has now been two years since my mommy left. As an adult, I have spent that time reckoning with the sad reality that in this particular instance, mommy will not be coming back. The most obvious way in which this absence is felt is the lack of a weekly phone call. I spent most of my adult life making a call to my mother most every Saturday or Sunday. It was a check-in for both of us, keeping track of the way things have gone and where they were headed. There were also the occasional weekday connection that became necessary when events prompted. Football scores, family news, and the announcement of my annual jury duty summons. We stayed in touch. 

The thing I feel most readily in this void is the lack of Gin Rummy. When I would go to Colorado to visit my mother, at some point the two of us would sit down with a deck of cards and play marathon games that provided a scaffold for lengthy discussions of whatever was on our minds. Sometimes it was nostalgia, sometimes it was current events, but it was always a connection that reminded us both of how close we were. 

Very. 

Then, two years ago, only a week after our last dissection of the Denver Broncos' loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, mom left. To say that there was no forwarding address would not be completely true. On any given afternoon you could take a stroll out to her plot in Mountain View Cemetery, right next to her mom and dad. Or simply pointing up to the sky. Hey mom!

Still, not having that regular exchange leading up to what we expect to be the first woman president in our nation's history stings just a bit more. Mine was the mother who asked her family if she could get a subscription to Ms. Magazine back in 1972. A lot has changed since then. Change continues to happen all over the place. I miss my mom, but every time I think of her and the bond we shared, I know that mommies always come back. 

Always. 

I Approve Of This Message

 When I came home on Thursday, my ballot was waiting in my mailbox. 

I wasted no time. 

I voted. 

Admittedly, there were a number of candidates and issues that I felt I needed to gain some clarity before I sealed that envelope and sent it off to be counted, but before I sat down to dinner I went to the first page and filled out, emphatically, that bubble next to the names of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It was the first time I ever voted for anyone younger than me for President and Vice President. 

I did it without hesitation. I did it in a flurry that was urged on by months of waiting to make this decision. Months ago, I would have felt similarly rushed, but I would have been mostly acting on my need to vote for anyone but Donald Trump. My Democratic lineage would have brought me to that decision regardless, but over the past few months, my enthusiasm for Kamala Harris has grown to a fever. 

She is not the first person of color for whom I have cast my vote. Nor is she the first woman I have chosen to be our President. I believe that fundamentally our leaders should look like the people for whom they serve. Last time I checked, Americans come in a lot of shapes, sizes, and colors, but there's only one big orange one. 

Kamala Harris has had one client for her entire professional life: The People. I like that. I like that when she laughs, it sounds like she's asking me to join in with her, not to deride someone else. I like that she stands for things in which I too believe: Possibility. Change. Moving Forward. 

Hope. 

When I put my ballot in my mailbox, I thought about how I felt four years ago. That dread has been replaced by a light that feels like we can finally pick up the pieces of our divided nation and start to put them back together. School shootings, climate change, and all the fear and hate can be tamped down to the dull roar that it used to be. We do not have to live our lives wondering what crisis needs to be negotiated because someone in the Oval Office couldn't keep their slimy business practices out of the affairs of state. 

I feel pleased and happy to have the chance to once again follow a leader: Kamala Harris.

How?

 The slogan is: Make America Great Again. The first thing to note is that after four years in office, the MAGATs managed to do little to make good on that claim. A more divided country. A rising tide of xenophobia. The elimination of a woman's right to choose. An increase of the national debt of almost eight trillion dollars. A bunch of happy billionaires.

The rest of us? Not so much. And after four hundred thousand Americans had lost their lives to the mishandling of the COVID Pandemic, the MAGA show packed up their bags and left town. But first, they made a stop at the Capitol, where they beat police officers, broke windows and threatened to hang the Vice President of their own party. 

Now this merry band of pranksters would like to move back in. Part of their argument for being reinstated as the folks in charge is their insistence on putting America First. In order to support their efforts, they are selling Bibles. For sixty dollars you can get yourself the revealed word of God, printed in China, to help further the cause. If sixty dollars won't do it, you can always through down one hundred thousand dollars to own a watch that, like that "God Bless The USA" Bible was probably also made in China. 

Are you sensing a trend here? 

But let's hop back a bit for a recent revelation: During the height of the pandemic, the former "president" and game show host sent COVID tests to his pal Vlad "The Inhaler" Putin in Russia. COVID tests that were in short supply here in the God-Blessed USA. This was confirmed by the Kremlin. It makes sad sense that a man whose understanding of winning friends and influencing people begins and ends with empty gestures to his own country. It also raises all kinds of questions about why a man who has failed at so many things would be allowed to be considered a front-runner for any office in this great land of ours.

And yet, here we are, with less than a month to go before the election in a dead heat. The dividing line between those that understand the grift taking place and the hapless marks who continue to line up for the continued abuse. Like the Superintendent of Oklahoma schools who had initially insisted on putting a Trump Bible in every classroom in his state. The constitutionally defined line between church and state had already been wiped clean by Superintendent Walters, but then to be sure that the MAGAt agenda would be further enhanced, he decided to insist that the revealed word of God would be mixed in with historical documents like the Declaration of Independence and The United States Constitution. 

Make America A Bizarro World Filled With Contradictions And Lies. MAABWFWCAL!

The Dating Game

 One of the biggest challenges in these troubled times is finding someone with whom you feel comfortable navigating them. For all my single friends, this one goes out to you: 

“I’m married now and I have children, but I wasn’t married that long ago. I was single and I was on the market. If you are a young man—it’s very important in an election season—who’s looking to impress the ladies, to be the alpha, to be attractive, the best thing you can do is to wear your Trump support on your sleeve.” 

“Show that you are a real man, show that you are not a beta, right?. Be a proud and loud Trump supporter, and your dating life will be fantastic.”

The preceding advice comes to us from MAGA's favorite propaganda minister and Nosferatu impersonator, Stephen Miller, who appeared on Jesse "Hold Your" Watters Faux News show to share his tips for picking up chicks. Jesse is the guy who has described Kamala Harris as "a frightened woman," and Count Stephen once referred to his big orange boss as "a style icon." 

What I am suggesting here is that these men might be the perfect reverse barometer for just about anything. While I applaud the fact that both of these men seem to have found love in their own particular idiom, Mister Watters having divorced his first wife after having an affair with a producer on his show and then marrying that producer suggests that finding women may not be his problem as much as staying with them. Pale Prince of the Night Miller found the love of his life just down the hall in the former Vice President's communications office. Katie Miller nee Waldman was working for Mike Pence before she was whisked away to Trump Tower for their dream nuptials. 

I would imagine that MAGAfilliation had a lot to do with all of these couplings, but I am not sure that this strategy would be successful with anyone who might have the slightest objection to the way the Big Orange Boss has carried on his romantic life. But, if Jesse and Stephen have their way, Project 2025 should clear the decks of any of those obstacles to happily ever after once women have been returned to their proper place in our society. Like Stepford. 

Happy hunting, boys!

Catching Up

 Sexism.

Misogyny. 

Patriarchy. 

This is the sliding scale I see at work here in the early stages of the twenty-first century. Certainly one could point a finger at certain other countries whose theocracy burdens the women of their cultures not only with the social constructs but also with the religious beliefs that have been installed to oppress women. But, as we say in the teacher biz, that leaves three more fingers pointing back at us: The good ol' US of A. 

Like the way we "fixed" racism back in the 1960s, there were those who figured that sexism was over once Gloria Steinem showed up to make everything alright. Back in 1984 Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to run as Vice President for a major political party in our nation's history. Before that, Shirley Chisolm, a black woman, ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972. The fact that it took almost another fifty years to get a woman of any color anywhere near the Oval Office. 

That's what we call progress in a patriarchy. In a time when the pendulum for equal rights seems to have swung back farther than ever, ignoring the laws of physics. As the number of women in this country continues to be greater than the number of men, we continue to watch the rights of the majority controlled by the boys' club that started that whole nonsense about "all men" being created equal. 

We're still very afraid of what women can do. Men can wage wars and topple markets. But they cannot create life. Men like to kid themselves, pardon the expression, but they are actually a pretty small part of the equation. This is why there is such a rush of males gathering together in cabals to try and control female anatomy. For fifty years, along about the time Shirley Chisolm was trying to break that gentrified ceiling, the law of the land was that a woman had a right to choose what happened to her body. Fifty-five percent of Americans consider themselves "pro-choice," which suggests that there are at lest a few men who are thinking outside their box. And just a few women willing to give up control of their bodies to the government. The government dominated by men. 

The patriarchy. 

Which makes all this fuss that Republicans are making this election cycle about women who don't have "children of their own" are somehow less than their counterparts who have even more ridiculous. Women should be allowed to take care of their lives, liberties and their chosen path to happiness without the interference of 

Wait for it

The patriarchy. 

Time to let women make some choices for a while. They have a lot of catching up to do.