Intelligent LIfe?

 Watching as much televised sports as I do, I sometimes wonder what aliens monitoring our electronic transmissions must think about our culture. 

Do they really need all those pickup trucks? Perhaps only to move the metric tons of chips required to sustain life on our planet. Of course, if you own a pickup truck to haul your snacks around, you'll probably want to insure it against any sort of mishap involving dip or soda. 

They might also wonder about the attention span of your average earther. All these folks sitting watching a game really need to see bits and pieces of the game they are watching over and over again. In slow motion. From above. From below. From a camera suspended by wires above the stadium. With all of those cameras and wires and cables, how can the paying customers see the contest they were fortunate enough to spend their children's college fund on tickets? 

But more than anything else, why would such a large portion of the world sit still on a Sunday afternoon when there is so much room in the parking lots at the nearby mall? While a few dozen grown men throw themselves about in the most extraordinary ways, vast chunks of the population sit very still, save for the occasional trip to the potty to void the beverages they have been sold over the course of the afternoon. Why aren't they encouraged to go out and be active in vaguely athletic ways? 

Because you wouldn't want to miss a commercial for the sporting event that is coming up next week. 

Stupid humans. 

Eighty-Three Million Reasons Why Not

 The headline read: Defamation defeat a double-edged sword for Trump. The jury's decision to award E. Jean Carroll more than eighty-three million dollars in damages from the account of her rapist "have been both a boon and a bane" for the presumptive Republican candidate for President. 

When I read this, my skin began to crawl. Mostly because this report from the BBC landed squarely on the dynamic that makes the entire experience of dealing with the former game show host so infuriating. While every additional horrible thing he says and does makes the general populace groan and wish for him to simply disappear, his "Base" laps it up. Unconcerned with the circumstances or the way things actually exist outside the rallies, the red-capped legions will most certainly continue to donate their mad money to pay off their demagogue's fines and fees. In for a penny, in for a pound. 

Of flesh. 

The message for most of us could not be more clear: This is a bad man making bad choices, with the expectation that he should be forgiven because he continues to surround himself with those who will do just that. And as this swirling mass of borderline humanity continues to gain any sort of momentum, they become more and more difficult to stop. An object of that size tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Sadly, the combined forces of truth and justice do not have the kind of stopping power that one might think. Instead, the principle of gravity takes over, with this black hole continuing to suck innocents by the auditorium full into its gaping maw. 

But hope springs eternal. Bear witness to the story of Dylan Quattrucci, a former staffer for the loser of the 2020 election. Mister Quattrucci was hustled out of the former president’s victory party in New Hampshire. It seems Dylan posted a photo with the multi-indicted one's attorney Alina Habba. Except she had excused herself from court claiming to be ill. Just not ill enough to skip the shindig celebrating her boss' essentially empty victory in the Granite State's primary. This is a guy who knocked on doors for weeks, raised thousands of dollars for the man who bankrupted four casinos, and proudly followed his master's order to march on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

When Dylan sobers up, do you suppose he'll contribute to the defense fund for this documented failure of a human being? Or is the best place for a double edged sword to be plunged into the heart of the tangerine colored puss-filled piñata? 

Stay tuned. 

Getting Over It

 Some time ago, I suffered a loss. I am almost over it, but there are things that linger in the background that ever so often pinch a nerve.

Entertainment Weekly ran out before my subscription did. 

This blow to the contours of my lifestyle has almost been completely absorbed by means of a good wi-fi connection, but as the son of a printing salesman I feel like the loss of physical media is a blow against the way of life I once enjoyed. The ritual of perusing a magazine from cover to cover over the course of a week was one that marked the passage of time for me. After they fired the entire editorial staff and turned exclusively to freelancers submitting their work through an online portal, I continued to plug away, wincing slightly at the decline in journalistic standards. But this was Entertainment Weekly, after all. Not the Wall Street Journal. I wasn't looking for insights of any particular stripe. 

Then they, the powers that be, suddenly switched their circulation from weekly to monthly. And they extended my subscription by a multiple of four because of it. This meant I needed to find other ways to fill up those other three weeks' breakfast routine. 

And then they were gone. The powers that be decided to send me People magazine instead. This made me appreciate the journalistic integrity of those lame freelancers, but it was not any sort of substitute for the entertainment I was receiving weekly. After a brutal series of on-hold experiences on hold, I finally cancelled my subscription. 

I was forced to relive all this pain and suffering as I learned about the passing of Sports Illustrated. A recent "mishandled payment" between one corporate beast and another. The result was cutting loose the entire editorial staff. At that moment, the sports authority for nearly seventy years ceased to exist. Not that the world at large noticed much. There was a website that anyone who really needed something called Sports Illustrated could turn to. Who needs to sully themselves with all those trips to the mailbox and the attendant need to store/recycle back issues? This would be an environmental win if nothing else. And all those accusations of articles written by machines could just be ignored. And when you get right down to it, after you know the scores, who really needs their opinions adjusted about sports?

Still, I couldn't help but feel for those whose breakfast tables were suddenly left as empty as my own, all those years ago. Clicking on your laptop and scrolling through a website is a very different experience from the non-backlit casual turning of pages. Pages carefully written, photographed and printed, mailed directly to you each week. 

I don't know if I'll ever really be over it. 

Danger Is My Middle Name

 I owned a motorcycle. Not that I was ever legally allowed to do so, but in keeping with the time-honored tradition started by my older brother, it was a rite of passage that we enjoyed while becoming full-on teenagers. I learned to ride by handling his Kawasaki Trail Boss 100 on the dirt roads around our mountain cabin. There wasn't a lot to it, really. We took turns giving one another rides up and down the half mile between the big hills at the end of the two ruts that served as our driveway. Back and forth. Endlessly. 

Until it was my turn. My older brother had moved on to the four wheels of the Toyota pickup he bought once he got to high school. It was deemed appropriate that I would have my own motorcycle, and so in keeping with the family line, I chose another Kawasaki. This was also a 100cc trail bike, a notch smaller than its predecessor, but the hundred cubic centimeters were important. I was informed that anything less would make it a "mini-bike," and I wasn't going to ride a mini-bike. 

And so during those summer months that we lived in the mountains, this was a near daily activity after finishing our chores: filling up the gas tank, strapping on our helmets, and my younger brother and I would rev it up for a session of tearing up and down the dirt road until we tired of it. Never did it occur to me that this was a needless waste of fossil fuel that certainly contributed to the climate crisis that we set in motion all those years before. Not to mention the constant ringdingding of the two stroke engine echoing into the valley for hours at a time.

When summer ended, we stuck the Kawasaki in the back of the station wagon and hauled it down to civilization where it sat behind the fence of our suburban home, waiting for the seasons to change and it would be time once again to hit the road. 

Except that one time, when I was fifteen, and it occurred to me that there really wasn't a huge difference between the dirt road in front of our cabin and the suburban cul de sac where we lived the rest of the year. So when my parents were out, I opened the side gate and wheeled that bad boy out. I was gratified by the way it started right up. I sat there in the driveway, idling. My younger brother rushed out to join me, because that was what we did. 

I took a few quick turns down to the corner and back. The helmets were stowed in a box locked away in our cabin, so I went without. The wind rushed through the hair I had back in those days, and the feeling I had was that of a conqueror. The streets were mine.

But I wasn't crazy enough to take it past the stop sign at the end of our street. 

The sound brought other kids outside, and just around the corner I saw some of my friends, the ones who were still young enough to stand in awe of my mean machine. I roared up to their driveway, and stopped, smiling broadly. 

Then I did something that sticks with me to this day: I revved the engine and popped a wheelie, lurching forward up the driveway in the direction of my assembled fans. They squealed and dashed out of the way, and I stopped, yards away from them but feeling that I was the menace that this neighborhood deserved. 

That's when the dad came rushing out of the garage ahead of me. "What do you think you're doing?" He roared. "That's a death machine! You could have killed someone."

And in that moment I understood why my parents had kept my motorcycle under wraps when were were "in town." I wasn't ready for this kind of interaction. Not with the kids. Not with the dad. Not with all the responsibilities that came with operating a death machine. I stammered an apology, because I wasn't really a rebel at all. I was embarrassed and ashamed, and I backed out of the driveway and put the motorcycle back where it belonged. 

Safe. 

When I turned sixteen, I left two wheels behind and inherited that Toyota pickup my older brother had grown out of. My younger brother got himself a Yamaha. For riding in the mountains. 

Two Of Us

 My wife drove me to school last Wednesday. It's still a rare enough occurrence that we shared it like it was a little celebration. On the way there, we played Beadle, the musical version of Wordle in which you try to guess the Beatles song from listening to two seconds of audio. I enjoyed the warmth, and not just that which was coming from the heater. Outside it was cold and raining, and I considered how onerous my usual bike commute would be had I been noble and braved the elements. I thought about the way I was able to listen to the drops pelting the roof of our car and the water rushing beneath out tires and made a special note: This is a keeper.

Somewhere along the ride my wife noted, not for the first time, that she thought it was amazing how I had held on to the school to which we were heading. The school where I had been hired all those years ago. There are a lot of Horace Mann schools across the country, and three right here in the Bay Area. In another century, after I received the news that I would be heading to the one in Oakland, I strapped my newborn son into our jogging stroller and went out in search of the place that I would call "home" when I wasn't actually home. The ground we covered way back when is essentially the same route I cover each day on my bike.

Each day that it isn't pouring down rain. And some days when circumstances don't facilitate a ride in the family car, and I have to put on my rain gear in anticipation of spending the rest of the day in damp clothes. It makes me proud enough to endure the periodic suffering like all those mornings in my youth when I used to hike to school in the Colorado snow. 

But not on this day. I was safe and warm, singing along to a Beatles song, enjoying the togetherness that sometimes eludes us. I was happy to be going to work, not just for the chance to expand young minds and live through what would most certainly be a day of indoor recess, but to have a place to be.

The song we sang was Two Of Us. And we know it by heart. 

Clique Bait

 I may be looking at things from the wrong perspective. I am a sixty-one year old white male, and I am trying to comprehend the minds of fifth grade girls. The same girls who just a few months ago were happy to spend their Tuesday afternoons in the leadership group I run from three to four. This past semester it was a group comprised almost exclusively of these same girls. They learned about community and working as a team. And for that perhaps I should only blame myself that they found the courage to leave me behind. 

I should remember how the evolution of your average fifth grade girls runs. They become socially adept far more quickly than their male counterparts. While the boys are focused on the rudimentary aspects of team sports, with varied success, the collective that becomes our promotional speakers and student council representatives are moving forward. 

Quickly. 

So quickly, in fact, that it always catches me unaware. And it breaks my heart. A little. These girls who were eager for my approval and advice are now relying on one another for social interactions that leave me feeling left behind. The boys continue to need me for the things they always did: getting balls off the roof, walking them back to class after they raced out in a fit of pique. The girls now look to one another to resolve the conflicts that would confound any less developed mind. They understand each other. Which terrifies me just a little.

Then I remember the scary masses of fifth grade girls who came before them, and I am glad that this current group seems to maintain a healthy respect for authority, even if they don't want to be in Mister Caven's Upward Roots group. They have matured, and are ready to move on. This is infinitely preferable to those that insist on being left behind and have no interest in being part of anything. Ever. 

They found themselves, and this is a good thing. Even if it means they don't drop by as often. But I also know a secret: These are the ones who will stop off on their way home from middle school next year. Just to say hello. 

And I'll be glad to see them. 

Almost

 According to the voices coming from Mount Mar A Lago, the nickname "Ron DeSanctimoniuos" has been retired. Like electing a new pope but in reverse, that puff of smoke you saw over the weekend was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign for president heaving its last dying breath. 

When it was all over, Governor Ron even had a few words for the less-than-astonished onlookers: “It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” he said, adding: “He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”

Quick check: Asserting that America is never been a racist country is the old Republican guard of yesteryear. The party that once gave us Abraham Lincoln. Or maybe Ron's vision of "yesteryear" is limited by the textbooks he allows to be kept on the shelves in his state's schools. 

For the record, Ron dropped out of the race just two days before the New Hampshire primary, leaving the viable candidates to just Darling Nikki and the guy who spends as much time in courtrooms as he does on the campaign trail. This sets the stage for ten months of the kind of high-level rhetoric embodied by the oh-so-clever nicknames generated by a man who would fail third grade science. He chose to make his announcement on Twitter, just like he did when he decided to get into this mess. His dispatch of failure came in the midst of the NFL playoffs, so it's likely that it will still be some days before that nerve impulse will reach the brain of many of his supporters. 

Ultimately it's kind of a wash. It is highly unlikely that the exposure that we have had to Governor Ron will continue to the extent that we have endured over the past several months. His footwear will no longer be a source of curiosity upon which the public can speculate. With all the other horrible things into which this man has chosen to muck about, like sending people from foreign countries seeking asylum on mystery bus rides to other states, or picking fights with Mickey Mouse and Doctor Fauci. If he believed that pulling the plug on his campaign and kissing the former game show host's ring would get him a cushy job in the next Trumpreich, he might want to check the license plate and tire tracks all across his back from the bus that just ran him over. 

But we'll always have the memories, won't we Ron? 

Free Radicals

 What is radical?

If I were a skateboarder in 1985, I might be describing a kickflip or a nosegrind. Awesome. 

Or perhaps I could be describing a group of atoms in a compound. 

Maybe the root of a number of quantintiy. 

Or maybe I am describing Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Or people who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence. The part about inalienable rights. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Of course there are plenty of folks who would say that they wouldn't argue that point, as long as it doesn't interfere with their rights, or their need to be on top of things. These folks are the ones who would rather not see everyone be too equal. 

Once upon a time, the ideas found in the Declaration of Independence were considered radical. Revolutionary even. There was even a suggestion that everyone else should send us their hungry, their poor, and those who were yearning to breathe free. If you were to suggest such a thing today, well that would make you a radical. Or that homeless Americans deserve our help. Millionaires should pay their share of taxes. Some people shouldn't own guns. Convicted felons should not be President of the United States.

I know. Pretty radical. 

Return

 She pushed the door in to her arm's length before stepping in. All those familiar smells came swirling around her, bringing tides of memory. Then she was across the threshold. Inside once again.

"Mommy?" she called. How long had it been since she had said that word? Under her feet the wooden floor creaked. Around her were all the familiar shelves. The light coming in from behind her from the front windows. The light coming from the back door off in the distance. She waited before calling again. "Mommy? It's me."

A rustle from the back room, then a surprised voice: "Barbara? Is that you?" More rustling, and then she appeared in the doorway. Her mother.

"Hello mommy," she said plainly. "I'm home."

Her mother rushed around the counter, wiping her hands on her apron as she rapidly approached. Tears in her eyes. 

As her mother embraced her, she repeated, "I'm home."

The hug was fierce and lasted as long as it should have. "Oh Barbara. We've missed you." Her mother took a step back and without letting go of her daughter's shoulders. Then she pulled her close once again. 

Time stopped until at last she said, "Where's daddy?"

Now the embrace ended as they both wiped tears from their eyes. "He's out back. Didn't you see him on your way in?"

"No. I was just focused on getting inside."

"Ralph! Come quick!" her mother shouted toward the back door. "He was just putting some," a furtive look behind her. "Ralph!"

Then there was a shape in the door, "Thelma? What's all the fuss?" It was her father. Illuminated by the bright light from outside. 

"It's your daughter. Our little girl. She's home."

It took her father only a few long strides to reach her, and when he did he had his turn at the endless embrace. Then he too stood back. "Let's get a look at you." 

She gave them a twirl, as light on her feet as she ever had. "Oh mommy, daddy. It's so good to be back here again."

The three of them stood in the center aisle of the drug store, dabbing at their eyes. It was her mother that spoke up first. "Promise me you won't go away again."

"Never," she promised. 

And she never did. 

Across The Aisle

 I write a lot, mostly here in this space, about my disdain for Republicans. The challenge here is that I am fully aware of how limiting this perspective is. There are plenty of caring, well-intentioned human beings here in the United States whose party affiliation does not say everything about them. Many of the generalities spewed by folks like myself are generated by a revolving cast of characters whose names we rattle off like a rosary. 

Boebert. 

Greene.

Jordan.

DeSantis.

Gaetz.

And the beat goes on, along with a litany of complaints connected to their ridiculous and insipid notions and agendas for Making America Great Again. 

What gets lost in the wash is the significant number of Republicans who are doing their level best to serve their country, county, state or province in meaningful ways without drinking the Red Hat Kool-Aid. These "moderates" or "RINOs" as they have been labeled by members of their own party labor in obscurity while the ninnies and the twits get all the TV time. 

Meanwhile, across the aisle there are plenty of characters in need of an attitude adjustment. I am currently pointing at Senator Bob Menendez from the great state of New Jersey. While Greene and her cabal have been turning over every rock in the Rose Garden to find some dirt on Hunter Biden and his dad, Senator Bob has been indicted on charges including conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. Sounds bad. 

And it is, but as previously referenced, the song from Hamilton reminds us "everything's legal in New Jersey."

But it shouldn't be. Or perhaps if it is, we should allow the Garden State to secede from the Union and we can park all of the pointy heads from both parties there. Problem solved.

You're Welcome. 

Furious Sound

 A few days back I used the word "bloviation" in a post here on this, my little corner of Al Gore's Internet. 

If you missed that one, then let me go ahead and drop the definition here for your to consider: "talk at length, especially in an inflated or empty way." 

I used this term not to describe my own verbal predilections, but rather to shine a light on one particular wretch's oration skills. You may be familiar with a play Bill Shakespeare wrote, the one you're not supposed to talk about if you're in a theater setting which is odd in itself, called "Macbeth." It includes a line which hitches up to this train of thought nicely: " it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Understand here that it is not me that is referring to the former "president" as an idiot. That's all Bill, in that Shakespearean way he had to describe certain elements of the human (or nearly human) condition. As we creep ever closer toward the brink of the 2024 election, and I use the word "creep" with certitude, the sound and fury issuing forth from the MAGAt in chief only escalates as he continues to chew up political opponents and spit them out in subservient chunks. 

It might be worth noting the allegiance this former game show host inspires. It might be, except they seem to be cut from the same narrow-minded hate-filled cloth as their leader. The fellow who stands at the podium and blathers on for an hour about water flow and the way he is persecuted by the legal system that he flaunts daily, then his minions gush about how he is speaking "for them." Nothing in particular. Not the whales beaching themselves because of the sound of windmills, but the overarching theme of revenge. 

Revenge for what? From whom? That is a lot harder to articulate than the frenzied insistence that not getting exactly what he wanted when he wanted. Which is why he continues to drone on and on about how mistreated he is. As well as all that other sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

A tale told by an idiot, indeed. 

Holding Steady

 You can't step in the same river twice. 

This is the kind of phrase that sticks in my head as if it were wisdom. It is a metaphor for how unrelenting change is. The water rushes on and each time you stick a foot in it the swirls that form around your ankles, knees, waist, neck are new.

Or something like that. 

Applying this model to working in public education, it helps to think of all the new policies, programs and curriculum that come down the stream are the river in which I find myself. Recently I was asked if I would mind teaching art next year rather than computers. My initial response was to try and figure out a way to halt the flow of the river and instead continue to stand in the safe, still eddy in which I have grown so comfortable over all these years. I am, after all, an institution. 

Except that's not exactly true. The institution is the school in which I work. Not me. I have been clever and cagey enough to avoid being swept away by the currents that roil around me when so many of my colleagues have disappeared downstream long ago. I have achieved this by making small adjustments in my stance and learning when and how to shift with the current as it rushes past. 

Keeping my head above water is the main thing. 

I have seen highly principled educators leave rather than deal with the inevitable adaptations to which they will be asked to conform. That's not me. I have my principles, but I also have a principal, and I tend to do what I am asked with an eye toward keeping my time in the river with my aforementioned head above water. 

Negotiations and scheduling will continue to play a part in what happens next, but the way I can keep the river from changing is by keeping my feet firmly planted on the riverbed. Those slippery, shifting rocks that erode and tumble downstream.

It's a metaphor. Get it? 

Or is it a simile? 

Cold Wind Blowing

Sixty-eight percent of those Republican voters polled in Iowa after their caucuses last weekend said they believe that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. Approximately the same percentage that insisted that if their favorite over-inflated tangerine was forced to take the oath of office from a prison cell that would be okey doke with them. 

And it's not as if this were a tiny cross section of radicalized MAGAts. Iowa was chosen, once upon a time, as a model for the rest of our great nation. It was widely believed that as Iowa went, so would the rest of the country. So even as blizzards and sub-zero temperatures clamped down on the Midwest, GOP voters were urged to go out to local gymnasiums and churches to stand in corners and be counted. Let their votes be counted. Let freedom ring. 

Even though it makes so very little sense.

Meanwhile, as the snow piled up and the chill continued, the same dim minds that keep pushing for the insurrectionist in chief to be put back into the office he defiled, the brain trust behind all of this "conservatism" was shouting out on social media about "so-called global warming." Lauren Boebert, representative for the State of Colorado's Third District (for now) posted the following on the fourteenth of January: “You’ve got to appreciate the irony of climate protestors trudging through a foot of snow and -30 degree wind chills to yell about how the planet is warming.” Then she added: “They just don’t see it, do they?”  

Which reinvigorates that seemingly impossible to bridge the gulf for some of these proto-humans between weather and climate. Much in the same way that many of these same tiny brains wrestle with the difference between a "normal tourist visit" and the attempted violent overthrow of our democratic process. 

That frigid wind you feel is the reality of a divided country sneaking up on you. It's not climate change. It's the air being sucked out of the world by unreason. 

Trubute

 Just before we returned to school to start the New Year, we received a text from our principal saying that she would not be there on day one of 2024. It seems that she contracted a bit of the COVID while vacationing with her husband. On a cruise ship. 

For a moment or two, we briefly piled on. After years of masks and air filters and sanitizing hands at every entrance and exit how could this have happened? The answer was easy enough: Cruise Ship. 

So we did what we always do when someone is absent: We closed ranks and filled in as best we could until our principal could return. Which she did on Friday. After she had tested negative and put all her symptoms away. All of us breathed a sigh of relief when she came back. The principal of a school is a community leader, and aside from all the things that she does over the course of a day, a week, a year is only part of what makes her so vital. Having a leader is important when you're taking on an endeavor as huge as the shaping of young minds. 

Which is why I felt the passing of Dan Marburger, principal of Iowa's Perry High School. Mister Marburger died from the wounds he suffered when a seventeen year old student at his school opened fire on January 4, killing a sixth grader and wounding six other kids. Eyewitnesses have reported that it was the principal who distracted the shooter while other students fled the crowded cafeteria to safety. 

Ten days later, Dan Marburger became the third victim to die including the shooter from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

I know how difficult it was for the kids at my school to wrap their heads around the idea that their principal was sick. For three days. The idea that your principal wouldn't be coming back. Ever. That packs a punch. Forever. For always. 

Over the course of my career, I have worked with a number of principals. Some of them came and left. Others stuck around and made their mark. There is a mural outside our kindergarten room commemorating Nancy Morganti, who passed away suddenly from cancer, leaving us all to ponder our relative permanence in this business. 

I hope there will be a mural. A statue. A tribute somewhere on the Perry High School campus for Dan Marburger. And in the hearts of those he helped learn and grow. 

Friend Indeed

 "Can you hold my watch?"

The hand that came up between the front seats had said watch dangling by the band.

"And could you turn the music down just a bit?"

I had turned it up as a consideration to myself, thinking that I didn't want to hear much if any of the muffled sounds from the back seat. I turned down the volume. Just so much, but no more. 

Meanwhile, the slap and tickle fest that was this Friday night was in my back seat continued. I put the watch on my gearshift and stared off into the darkness. The cul-de-sac where we were parked had been divined over some time and research suggested that traffic would be minimal to non-existent in this little corner of heaven. 

I sat there, looking forward instead of back since I was supposed to be invisible. Or as non-existent as the traffic for the purposes of this make-out session. 

How did I get here? I was a junior in high school. I was friends with a senior, who started dating a sophomore. He didn't own a car, so when he wanted to show his girl a good time, at least to the extent that the back seat of a 1972 Vega could be considered a good time, he called on me to drive him and his date to this one particular corner on the north end of town. 

And I went. 

Because I wanted to ensure that I would still be friends with that senior. And his girlfriend. Who might not be his girlfriend if he didn't have access to my back seat. So what I am saying here was that I was willing to allow myself to be mixed up in my friend's relationship in order to be friends with a senior. This in turn allowed me the privilege of chamfering him and his lady friend to dark corners of the suburbs. 

If you were to suggest that I was desperate for friends in high school, I would ask only that when you point at this example that you don't laugh. It's okay to point. It's okay to laugh. But it's not okay to point and laugh.  

Sounds Of Silence

 It wasn't until Saturday morning that it struck me: No phone, no music. Not a single luxury. Well, the luxury in this particular case may have been that I was safe and warm inside. I was contemplating braving the break in the wind and the rain to go out for a little exercise. 

But I didn't have a phone. 

Which in hindsight seems like the most ridiculous excuse imaginable. However, my continued commitment to hitting those streets most every day to get a few miles in are all but predicated on the tunes I carry with me. It used to be an iPod. Before that it was an MP3 player about the size of a Walkman. And before that it was a Walkman. My phone was my connection to the vast sea of music available through streaming services. A couple of taps on a screen and shove those earbuds into my head and voila, an escape from the drudgery of anything more than a walk around the block. 

There I was, faced with the dilemma: Cutting my run short or skipping it all together or making the grand step of going outside without external entertainment. 

I stepped out the door, and began my run. 

The first quarter mile was a bit disconcerting. My mind struggled to find a topic or a line of thought that would bring me to the rhythm that I am used to finding by shuffling through popular music from the past seventy years. Somewhere before I reached mile one, I decided to sing a song to myself.

I know a lot of songs. This is probably due in large part to the amount of time I have spent running around the streets of California and Colorado with songs that I have eventually learned by heart. 

Could I recreate this experience in my head without earbuds? 

I started with The Beatles. There are a lot of Beatles songs in my head. Getting them to play from start to finish was the challenge. Around mile two I remembered the first song by any artist that I knew start to finish: Rocky Raccoon. "Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota there lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon..."

I didn't worry about the tempo, and I got a little lost when I stopped to let a car pass in front of me at a stop sign, but I made it through. So I tried Yellow Submarine. And Magical Mystery Tour. Then I switched over to Bruce Springsteen. There are a lot of Bruce songs in my hard drive. Born To Run came easy. As did Cadillac Ranch. 

By now I was working into my fifth mile. Body and brain were feeling weary, so I decided to head on home, trying to recall the lyrics to Homeward Bound. By Simon and Garfunkel. When I made it up the front steps, I was ready for some peace and quiet. 

Looking Out For Others

 This past Friday, my phone died. The one I carry in my pocket. The one that takes pictures of interesting things I encounter over the course of my day. The one that contains my contacts to the outside world. The one that sends and receives valuable messages about fifty percent off my next purchase of candles from Pier 1 Imports. The one that keeps me tethered to my coworkers via text through messages and associated memes.

The one that has all my personal time sinks. Like Beadle. And the omnipresent Candy Crush. Like checking the headlines. Messages on Twitter. Any sort of mild distraction that might take me briefly away from the emptiness of having nothing with which to fidget.

And suddenly I am reminded, by my wife, of those bygone days of yore when I proudly wore the badge of "I don't have a cell phone." 

Those times, sadly are passed. Now I find myself, as so many of us do, checking to see what my battery level is and what new intrusions into my quiet have been made since I checked four minutes ago.

Please understand that as an elementary school teacher, I am at a heightened level of awareness from seven in the morning to five o'clock at night, lest the slightest inattention to someone or something should cause more confusion and strife than normal.  Still, there are plenty of moments within my day that don't include some child or adult to have my full attention. It has been during those lulls that I find myself fishing my smart phone out of my pocket to do something dumb. To pass the time. 

This past Friday, this option did not exist. I returned to the public school employee I was before the great conditioning of my life via cellular telephones. I found myself rather than looking for a quiet spot to check my email, seeking out interactions. With kids. With parents. With fellow teachers. There were plenty times during the day that I felt the itch to tap or scroll through something, but I found that it got easier as I went on. This full attentive mode might just catch on.

Then again, I am fully ready to admit that I don't expect any sort of full-on conversion. So much of the business of our school's day takes place through text messages. The opportunity to have a world of information at your fingertips is something I find difficult if not impossible to resist. 

But putting my phone down more often would be a good thing. Keeping one more eye open for the chance to help out could not hurt. I'm not giving up Candy Crush. I am far too compulsive not to avail myself of its beauty and patterns. If I did miss an email here or there, I can always catch up at home. 

Where I can stare at my computer while my wife stares at hers. 

Whittling Down

 Now, it would seem, there are two. Two Republicans willing to put themselves through the discomfort that is running for President against one of the most notorious gangsters to ever run for public office. Please not that I said "gangster" and not "gangsta." I wouldn't want to imply any kind of street cred to this misogynistic, racist, homophobic, tiny-brained, twice-impeached, serially indicted flotsam that ever stuck his face into American politics. 

Chris Christie, former governor of the Garden State, has suspended his campaign. "I want to promise you this," he announced. "I’m going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again. And that’s more important than my own personal ambition."

I can see some of you in the back row applauding this statement, but let me remind you that Governor Chris was a part of the cabal that ushered the former "president" into office. Christie gave the gangster his personal okey doke back in 2016. He toed the party line in 2020 as well, perhaps extending the potential for The Big Lie that has hung over our country for the past three years. 

It would be very easy to focus on the clips of Chris Christie hugging Barack Obama just after Hurricane Sandy hit the New Jersey shores. Christie has spent the last twelve years insisting that it never really happened. Then there's the Jersey connection between Governor Christie and notorious left-wing musician Bruce Springsteen. Chris insists that they have had a very mutual "up and down" relationship over the years. Bruce sang at Joe Biden's inauguration. Bruce has hugged Barack Obama on several occasions. It's not something either one has tried to hide. They even ended up doing a podcast together. 

So Chris Christie has picked up the thread of those who are now vehemently against 45 becoming 47. After spending millions of dollars on his campaign, most recently with an ad blitz that reminded voters that “His Christmas message to anyone who disagrees with him? ‘Rot in Hell.’ He caused a riot on Capitol Hill — he’ll burn America to the ground to help himself.” Christie has failed to make the needle jump past single digits across the country. 

Apparently there is a mass of wild-eyed fanatics who drank the Kool-Aid back when Chris Christie was pushing it himself back in 2016. And they are not interested in any of the truth he may be trying to share now. Only a matter of time before the last two candidates standing in the way of tRump part II tear each other to bits, leaving one to wish that they could get their old job back when this is all over. 

Or maybe get a hug from Bruce Springsteen as a consolation prize. 

Laws Of Attraction

 It is a little surprising to me that the above average genius that is the mind currently leading the pack of Republicans, dwindled to just three now, is unable to grasp the concept of magnetism. This is a being, related to humans in some tropical fruit way, that seems to attract all sorts of things: Bad energy. Bad people. Federal indictments.

But for today's discussion, let's just talk about failed relationships. The former game show host has been married three times. In each of those unions, he has strayed outside what most consider the bounds of holy matrimony. So much of what has gone on in the nearly fifty years since he "settled down" with first wife Ivana back in 1977 is rumor and hearsay that I hesitate to bring them up as facts, but like so many things associated with the twice-impeached sack of protoplasm, the truth probably skews more toward the more tawdry end of the spectrum. 

It's a pretty well established fact that he of the multiple indictments cheated on his current wife while she was pregnant. With a porn star. That's all part of one of the many and varied court cases currently pending against the former "president." The one that includes hush money being paid to the star of "Bad Girls At Play." Just your standard First Lady type stuff. 

Then there's the matter of head MAGAt's first wife, whom he chose to bury on the golf course he owns in New Jersey. To borrow a line from another political opera, "Everything's legal in New Jersey." It would seem that there were some tax breaks to be had by having his ex-wife's remains interred somewhere in the rough near the back nine. 

I bring this up because, in addition to dealing with the onslaught of legal troubles that cling to him like well, magnets, this past week found more bad news for the serial adulterer: Melania's mother passed away. We don't know this because of any communication emanating from "Truth Social" or the many and varied appearances this suspect has made over the past week. He has been far too busy making absurd claims about magnets and immunity, concepts which in spite of his ALL CAPS bloviation, he seems to know little about. 

His mother in law? That's something else for his current wife to deal with. His mother in law who just happened to be the same age he is. Mister Science is far too busy with the affairs of the world, if you'll pardon the expression.

On second thought. Don't pardon him. For anything. Ever. 

Not So Distant Past

 The 2024 school year kicked off for me in a middle school cafeteria. My first day back, along with hundreds of my colleagues, was a PD Day. Feel free to make up your own acronym, but if it ends up having some bearing on "no kids," then you're on to something. 

For the first time in years, we were all summoned to one big hall to discuss English Language Development. We discuss English Language Development in smaller groups often, but the fact that we were asked to crowd into this particular middle school cafeteria as a group of elementary educators was significant on two levels for me. 

First of all, this was our first indoor gathering of any size since 2020. You know, before the pandemic. Since then, most of these assemblies have been coordinated through the auspices of Zoom. Why risk the chance of infection when you can disseminate information via video conferencing? Even during the strike of 2022, we marched around outside, and when it came time to gather consensus from the masses we did so online. 

It was nice to see many of the faces from my past. The ones that had moved on. The ones that had gone off in search of greener pastures. Me? Oh, I'm still where I started, waiting for someone to tell me to move on. 

Then there was this other part: The middle school that was chosen for the gathering of this tribe was the one just a short-ish walk up the hill from my house. The same short-ish walk that my wife would make sometimes with our dog as she encouraged our son to his first period class. 

This was his cafeteria. These were his halls. For three years, this is where he roamed. I had been there on occasion, back to school night and the periodic jazz concert, but this was an era when my son was growing up and away. This was the time of my wife's PTA involvement. My Dads Club membership expired after elementary school. 

I found myself wondering about how he experienced middle school. I tried to overlay it with my own junior high years. How had he navigated the ups and downs, the tardy bells and the occasional bully? 

Did he feel as compromised as I did, sitting in that cafeteria? Waiting for the bell to ring so the next part of the day could begin? 

Was he happy? Did he feel the drag of obligation to sit there and wait for it to be over? I hoped for the former and resigned myself to the latter. 

Neo

 As I was clicking about the news, I stumbled on a picture of a fascist rally in Rome. The Rome in Italy. The rally was over this past weekend. This set off all kinds of alarms in my head, as I am certain that it dod for those Romans who were seeing it in real time. 

Real time. Italy was all but destroyed in the middle of the twentieth century when fascists took over and drove their country into a World War aligned with Nazi Germany. My guess is that none of the participants at this rally were alive when Benito Mussolini swept into power a hundred years ago, and only a few of them were born when three fascists were killed forty-six years ago, the ostensible reason for holding the rally in the first place. 

There is a law in Italy that forbids the reformation of the Fascist party. It's easy enough to skip past this restriction, of course. Just pick a different name. Call yourselves "neo-fascists." Like plastering the word "new" at the front of any product suddenly makes it worth our attention. 

As shocking as the scenes in Italy may have been, here in America we seem to have an even shorter memory. The anniversary of the 2001 insurrection at our nations Capitol got its summary rehashing, while many high placed pundits and members of the "neo-conservatives" referred  to those who had been put in jail for their participation in the violent attempt to overthrow our country's government as "hostages." One of these voices was Elise Stefanik, U.S. Representative from New York. Ms. Stefanik was a member of Congress when its chambers were attacked by an angry mob looking to overturn the results of a democratic election. 

Additionally, Representative Stefanik demurred when asked if she would certify the results of the upcoming presidential election. She has made her allegiances to the former game show host and current GOP front runner clear. Clear enough to be considered by many a potential Vice Presidential pick for the twice-impeached leader of the insurrection. 

Am I comparing neo-fascists to the Republican apologists? Sure I am. Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Bad ideas don't get better with time. 

What Really Happened

 Unless you live in South Florida, and if you are one of those who find themselves living in Dade County my apologies, you may have missed the excitement at a Miami mall on New Year's Day. Not the release of a special edition of the Grand Theft Auto video game. Not a Mar A Lago related event. 

None of those. This was, if you believe anything you hear coming out of the Sunshine State, an alien invasion. Not "alien" as in immigrants. Unless we're talking about extraterrestrial migration. 

On the first day of 2024, there was a massive law enforcement response to a disturbance at the Bayside Marketplace. Dozens of police cars descended on the mall, leading to all manner of speculation for those outside looking in that there must have been something far more nefarious than the initial reports of "teenagers fighting." 

The always dependable presence of social media that quickly filled the void of responsible journalism, resulting on multiple reports of eight to ten foot tall aliens terrorizing those late-season bargain hunters. Because of course this makes more sense than teenagers fighting. Who would believe that numerous fistfights and fireworks would attract so much attention from the local constabulary?

It is Florida, after all. And as soon as authorties start to huddle together to issue their denials, the possibility that they were covering up the outer space invasion became all kinds of more reasonable. Especially when those videos started to appear. Who could doubt that Miami was going to be the beachhead for the coming otherworldly occupation force? 

And it seems obvious what the next steps will be: get all those E.T.s on a bus and ship them up to Chicago. 

Time To Move On

 "Think of it, magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that's the end of the magnets." If you missed this little snippet of the former game show host's performance last Friday night, he was giving his own personal take on elevator technology using something other than his preferred John Deere. Nothing really new here, just a man who stares at eclipses and blames windmills for whales beaching themselves. It's not like the potential leader of the free world needs to have a working knowledge of how magnets work, but water?

If it feels endearing that a man in his seventies lacks basic scientific knowledge that your average third grader has, then maybe we should move on: Like when this same guy was promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine to combat COVID-19. "What could it hurt?" was his ringing endorsement of the malaria drug. Well, recently a study suggested that nearly seventeen thousand people died because they took this unapproved drug when their systems were already overwhielmed by the virus. 

You might try asking any of those people what it could hurt. Except they're dead. 

Again, not a medical doctor. This is a guy who specializes in firing people and bankrupting the casinos he owns. 

But he wants to be President of the United States. Again. With an understanding of the United States Constitution that rivals his comprehension of medical and physical science. Imagining that his own personal creepy brand of charisma would be enough to boondoggle his way around the democratic process, he continues to appear in front of crowds who cheer him on and reinforce the idea that any of his notions regarding anything. Like magnets. Or hydroxychloroquine. Or being a human being.

The day before his dog an pony show landed in Iowa, a sixth grader was murdered while he as having breakfast at his school. What was the wisdom the former game show host had to lay down? “It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here,” he said. “But have to get over it, we have to move forward.”

Get over it? Move forward? 

Time to get over this misanthropic bloviator. 

Very Real

 “This is like one of those things where you see on TV and you’re like that never gonna linger its way toward my community, but it does happen. It’s really real.” These were the words a student at Perry High School used to describe what happened on the first day back to classes after Winter Break. 

A visit from the President? A major cash award from a tech company to fund the new science wing? A new poll had selected their school as one of the top ten in the country? 

No.

You all know.

A student from Perry High School opened fire just after breakfast was being served. When the last shot was fired, there were four wounded students, the principal who stepped in to try and talk the shooter down was shot but is expected to survive, the seventeen year old gunman shot himself. But not before killing a sixth grader who was eating in the cafeteria because his middle school shares a campus with the high school. 

Welcome to 2024. 

The description from the student is a refrain that is all too familiar. Which is sadly ironic since there were eighty school shootings in 2023. The fact that we don't anticipate such events when the United States averages one mass shooting event every day should make this less of a shock. 

Which may be the only thing that saves us, ultimately. There is not a sixth grader in the world who gets out of bed expecting to be killed over breakfast. These are not the thoughts of a sixth grader. Nor should they be. The math test in third period. Trying to remember your locker combination after two weeks off. Will they have the cinnamon rolls I like? 

Bullying. Mental health. Single parent homes. All worthy points of discussion. For grownups. But how about we do something about the guns while we're at it? 

Post Script: Wayne LaPierre resigned from his post as CEO of the NRA, effective January 31. He cited health reasons for his departure. Others suggested that he left before the beginning of the trial begins for abuse of his organization's funds. 

At least he made it through breakfast. 

Crooked Line

 I imagine the battered, twisted soul of Richard Nixon wandering the beaches of San Clemente muttering in a ghostly whisper: "In my day, I was the bad one. I was the king. I was the worst of the worst."

I have also been thinking a lot about this word "conservative," and what it used to mean. Stay the course, don't rock the boat, straight as an arrow. Now that word seems to have gone the way of "literally." The line that used to drawn by a party that called itself "law and order" has shifted to the point where there are plenty of voices insisting that it would be perfectly fine to elect a president of the United States of America who would serve from jail. The powers and pundits that be have become blase enough about the looming legal troubles of their favorite son that they have begun to accept that they have a felon on their hands. 

This is a man who was elected back in 2016 with a truckload of dirty laundry, and did nothing over the course of his term to mitigate any of it. He finished it off by redefining "poor loser" by calling for the overturn of an election in which his slathering followers showed up in droves to invade the Capitol to wrest the democratic process from the people and give it to their Fureher. 

And just like so much of the awful things that he did, it was done in plain sight, and often recorded on audio or video, but those in the red ball caps continue to change the story to fit the outcome they so desperately need. 

Now, to absolutely no one's surprise, the Epstien List has placed a (checking the list twice) Donald J Trump on and around Pleasure Island. The "literal" crowd on the right are quick to point out that Bill Clinton is also on the list. And neither of those men have been accused of any wrongdoing. 

But here's the deal: Bill Clinton was impeached for his improper handling of an extra-marital affair. Mister Clinton is not currently running for any office. Nor is he under indictment for any other crimes or misdemeanors. Most significantly it should be pointed out that as awful as Bill Clinton's time in office may have been, he did not incite insurrection to hold onto power. Not for him or his Vice President who had issues with the ballot count way back in 2000. Eventually, he packed up and made room for the next guy and his puppet master vice president. 

And for the past two years Congress, which has fallen into the clutches of these "conservatives," has been moving the goalposts and suggesting different ways in which they might be constructed in order to compensate for their dear leader's ongoing malfiesence. So busy, in fact, that they have been mired in their own leadership struggles to the degree that they have the distinction of being the least productive group of legislators since the Great Depression. They seem to be most content when flinging mud not just at the current administration but at each other as well. This leaves quite a void on both the law and the order.

Which leaves the ghost of Nixon, standing on the beach looking east, and moaning softly as each fresh revelation and crime is made painfully clear. "If I was a crook, and I'm not saying that I was, I could have served from jail? Maybe I should have fooled around more on Pat." 

Pick A Side

 Fighting continues in Ukraine. The Gaza strip is under heavy fire. And the culture war here in the good ol' USA rages on. 

Most wars make it easy to pick a side. The Good Guys. Not the defunct personal electronics chain, but the side that has all the good people on it. Once upon a time, there was a fight about the ungodliness of rock and roll music, with Vice President Al Gore's wife Tipper at the center of a movement to censor all the naughtiness found at your local record store. 

Back in 1985, Tipper got her then-senator husband Al to get some time on the Senate floor to kick up her fuss, and a bunch of very stodgy folks sat in a chamber and were treated or subjected to lyrics from Prince, Sheena Eastin, and Judas Priest, depending on your point of view. None of those folks were around to defend their music, but Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, Frank Zappa, and John Denver showed up to argue for artistic freedom. Yes. That John Denver. It was John who compared the PMRC's mission to Nazi book burnings of another age. 

And nobody ever said bad words on rock and roll records ever again. 

Not really.

Like all good governmental proceedings, nobody ended up getting what they wanted. The PMRC got a label stuck on records warning of explicit content, and artists got bigger album sales for having that sticker on their record. 

Fast forward to 2004, when pop punk band Green Day released their album American Idiot. Nineteen years after the Senate hearings, the boys from the East Bay got one of those stickers plastered on their record. Sixteen million records, tapes and CDs later, they continue to play the songs in sold out stadiums and on television shows across the globe. 

Like when they showed up on Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve just a few days ago. They played the title track from that album, and made a slight change in the lyrics. The original had Billie Joe insisting that he wasn't "a part of a redneck agenda." Instead, he freshened it up a bit by singing "not a part of the MAGA agenda."

And the MAGAts lost their tiny little minds. "Recording Artist" Lara Trump lashed out at this slight divergence insisting that this was “not punk rock” and claimed that he was “controlled by the corporate political agenda.” She went on to take a wide swing at Neil Young, who pulled his music from Spotify because of their continued support of Joe Rogan's podcast full of right wing babble. “These are the people who are supposed to be the rockers that we look to, like, fight back against The Man. They are in lock step with The Man. It is amazing to see.”

Meanwhile, down at Mar A Lago, at a non-televised party, Lara's father-in-law's New Years Soiree featured the star power of "rapper" Vanilla Ice. No word on whether or not the estates of Freddie Mercury and David Bowie were paid for Ice's lame rip-off of their song. 

So, if we're picking sides, they've got Lara Trump and Vanilla Ice. I'll even toss in Kid Rock and an Elvis impersonator or two. We've got Green Day, Tom Petty, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and Neil Young. And, I'm willing to bet, John Denver.

Game Over. 

Free To New Subscribers

 The owner of Twitter, formerly known as "X," is once again pondering how he can get blood from the forty-four billion dollar rock he bought a year and a half ago. His latest inkling has been to charge users a few bucks a month to use the online gabfest. His initial sales job for users of his platform was to get folks to pay for a little blue checkmark next to the name they made up. Eight dollars a month for that little bit of added code. That added revenue isn't really making a dent in the losses Mister Mush has incurred, especially after he suggested that the advertisers who left following his nauseating support of anti-Semitists, "Your desire for attention is evident, and I encourage you to seek it within a more appropriate context." But in much more colorful language.

I'm not ready to help support the man who broke into what for many of us was our private funhouse and decided to let all the bad kids in. "Free Speech" at eight dollars a month reads like a pretty solid irony if not a complete contradiction of terms. 

So, much in the same way that no lunch is free, and even if the lunch itself is then the day you spend trying to find different ways to tell the Disney Vacation Club representative "no" is most egregiously not free, we are running out of "free."

Like "commercial-free." I got a nice note from Jeff Bezos over the holidays letting me know that my subscription to his Prime Video service was going to change very soon. When I say change, I mean devolve. Instead of watching a great many of the world's best and most interesting baking shows and bodice rippers without commercials, I would soon be able to watch a great many of the world's best and most interesting baking shows and bodice rippers with commercials. 

Unless I pay one of the richest men on the planet an additional two dollars and ninety-nine cents a month to take the commercials back out again. I'm no tech wizard, but it seems like putting the commercials into the programs is the expensive part. Leaving them out should be free. Or perhaps I should applaud Jeff and his engineers for discovering commercial TV in the same way that Columbus discovered America. 

This is the kind of genius we pay for. 

Thank you for reading this blog. That will be $4.99. 

The Time Has Come

 If you're anything like me, and why wouldn't you aspire to such heights, you have been itching to get hold of a pen and paper to commence to drawing your very own copyright-free version of Mickey Mouse. If you forgot to set your alarm for the year 2024 and it snuck up on you, I offer my apologies for not letting you in on this exciting moment in pop culture. As of January first of this year, Mickey Mouse has become part of public domain. Feel free to test the bounds of decorum and good taste with your very own version of Steamboat Willie, as if that suggestion alone wasn't sufficient to start Walt's cryogenically preserved head spinning in its hermetically sealed vault. 

Pardon me. I'll slow down just a bit, since there are some asterisks to duck and dodge here. The most obvious and profound being that this is a very tiny window of laissez faire. The Disney Company retains the rights to all versions of their chief rodent with the exception of the one found in his film debut, the aforementioned Steamboat Willie. The one with rubbery arms and legs, wearing pants and shoes, but no three-fingered gloves. My guess is that making that kind of mistake in branding might have you in litigation with a bunch of very pricey attorneys so fast that it would make your head spin. 

Because Disney is a fierce protector of its own. Like back in 1989 when a fun-loving Academy Awards producer got it into his head to feature Rob Lowe, of the Brat Pack, singing and dancing with a member of the Mouse Club: Snow White. We understand that Snow White, the story, has long been part of the vox populi, but the very specific image used on that fateful night left little to the imaginations of anyone watching, and to be sure, they added this lyric to their frightening version of Proud Mary: “I used to work a lot for Walt Disney, starring in cartoons every night and day.” When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences refused to apologize for their use of Ms. White without permission, the House of Mouse sued for what we can only assume was a kerjillion dollars. At the time, a spokesmouse said Disney files dozens of suits a year against individuals and companies that copy its characters, particularly in consumer products. “We sue all the time,” he said.

Apologies for all those, including myself, who bore witness to the spectacle were not forthcoming. But it does let you know that behind all those smiles and pixie dust there are still plenty of strings attached. So go ahead and have your Mickey Mouse fun, but don't make the mistake Rob Lowe did. 

Here's Your Laugh

 New year. New attitude. 

Sorry. If you thought that something about the exchange of calendars was going to alter my perception of how to proceed in the coming year, I am going to disappoint you. 

I was watching an old interview with Jon Stewart in which Chris Wallace took him to task about his biases and those held by "the mainstream media." There was a lot of hay to be made by Mister Wallace about how disrespectful Stewart was to Fox News. At each moment that Wallace felt he had his prey cornered, there was comedian Jon Stewart, gleefully explaining the difference between comedy and news. If you are positioning yourself as "news," then you owe it to your audience to be as direct as possible. Just the facts, ma'am. 

However, if you happen to be playing for laughs, then you can be a little more fast and loose with the particulars. But then you run smack into the reality of the old saw: It's funny because it's true. This is the corner where I personally like to set up shop. When I sit down to type up one of these little bits, I am aiming for amusement. Sometimes I find myself working in darker or uncharted waters, and hope that I can find my way out. Mass shootings aren't funny by nature, but if there is a turn to be made that makes one turn on a phrase or a moment that takes them out of the horror to think about the reality being presented, I want to rub our collective noses in it. Just as hypocrisy abounds on both sides of the political aisle, but I find the more sanctimonious examples found on the Right to be tastier, if not simply easier to poke at. 

What you are reading here is not journalism. My degree is in creative writing. I would be uncomfortable referring to myself as a comedian, but I would gladly take that title ahead of being called a reporter. Just as I would never ask any of you to accept that I am being fair and balanced here. That, as Austin Powers might say, is not my bag. My job here is to point you all in the direction of what I find odd or distracting. 

Like the fact that after all his effort trying to shame Jon Stewart into being "just a comedian," in 2022 Chris Wallace left Fox News. Here's how he explained himself: “I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion. But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was January 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.”

Now isn't that funny? 

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

 I know, I know. Stupid is as stupid does. I am relatively certain that irony is not one of the subjects covered in the preparation for the Colorado State GED course. But here goes:

"I’m living the American dream. I came up from welfare, standing in line waiting for government cheese, to now running for Congress. Let’s keep radical socialists out of government so that people can be empowered to lift themselves out of poverty, rather than wait on government!"

These were the words a Ms. Lauren Boebert, recently divorced and newly announced candidate for Colorado's fourth district seat in Congress. If you're rushing about trying to recall if this was the district she is currently representing, let me save you some time: It is not. Everyone's favorite member of Congress caught on surveillance video vaping and entertaining her date during a night at the theater is hopping districts in hopes that running in the Centennial State's most conservative district will save her "American Dream." Never mind that in doing so she has flopped from one side of the rectangle that is Colorado to the other since geography is probably not a subject with which she is completely comfortable.

The idea, it seems, is to keep the dream a reality. This little girl who "came up from welfare" and is now more than happy to kick that ladder out from under anyone looking for that same hand up is hoping to continue her career as part of the ruling class.

Please understand that at some level I can appreciate that this notion that any man, woman or child bride can rise to the station that Ms. Boebert finds herself. Kudos to her for pulling herself up by the bootstraps provided by a government program in addition to her own shoulder holster and the wave provided by MAGAts who showed up in 2020 to elect the most MAGAty candidate they could find in Western Colorado.

It's probably not a coincidence that Ms. Boebert earned her Grade Equivalency Diploma just a month before her first primary. She really hasn't had much time to delve into the civics and relationship to her constituents that being a Representative requires. It takes a lot of focus being a newly single mom and grandmother as well as coming up with inane banter like the bit above to confound the people who might want to hitch their wagon to her somewhat tarnished star.

But isn't that what the American Dream is all about?

Look Out, 'Cause Here It Comes

 Doesn't it seem like a year with the scope and depth of 2023 would have a better resolution for me than "get more fiber?"

Looking back at the year that was, it seems as though I would have something more profound upon which to reflect than the amount of roughage I take in on a daily basis. 

Then again, maybe it's not so curious a proposition at all. As I dive into what I will now refer to as my old age, I find that the concerns I have now have not changed a lot in the two decades in which I have been cranking out this blog. Guns. Kids. Kids and guns. Freedom. Love. Fear. Loathing. Memories of sugary breakfast cereals. 

What has changed? The creaky machine that brought me here. These old bones are not as swiftly regenerating as they once were, and in order to continue to rail against the former game show hosts and billionaire egomaniacs I will need to step up my own care and feeding. I can no longer fuel myself solely on the occasional bowl full of Crunchberries. I have an opportunity to get myself back into the game of life with renewed vigor and enthusiasm, and if that means paying more attention to to the amounts of nutrients I ingest, so be it. 

I know this coming year will most likely have its own set of challenges and distractions, and I will not be getting any younger, so if swilling the occasional smoothie and reading the labels of things I was going to eat anyway make it possible to starve off my impending decrepitude, I'll do just that. 

But I won't stop having fond memories of Cocoa Puffs.