Blow Up

 There is this thing, called "due process," and it sits right at the leading edge of all of our legal entanglements. It's right there in your fifth and fourteenth amendments. Due process requires the government to provide a person with notice and an opportunity to make their case in court before depriving them of life, liberty, or property. Or the pursuit of happiness, for that matter. Before we go stampeding a suspect's rights, we owe them a fair hearing. It is the cornerstone of American Justice. 

Due process is what is supposed to keep things like lynch mobs and vigilantes from rushing about dispensing what they may feel is correct. 

Even if those lynch mobs and vigilantes happen to be worki Ing for the United States government. Masked goons rounding up human beings and throwing them into unmarked vehicles is the kind of thing one might expect to hear about in third world countries run by a pathological despot. The kind of thing that the United States used to fight against. 

The Drug Enforcement Agency has simply thrown away their investigation arm, instead relying on the U.S. military to blow up anything they believe might be carrying illegal drugs. Three of these strikes were carried out last Monday, leaving fourteen dead and one survivor. There was no immediate word about whether or not the lone survivor would be turned over to American authorities. 

Perhaps to be blown up at some later date. 

I have, at times, opined in this space about the relative silliness of referring to confessed killers as "suspects" or the perpetrator of "alleged" misdeeds. Still, I hold on to the Dragnet epilogue. Not the part at the beginning where they say that the names were changed to protect the innocent, but at the end where they say that a trial was held in this and such court on this and such date and in a moment, the results of that trial. 

Except there aren't any trials. Just throwing people into unmarked cars and blowing boats out of the water. There is no need for probable cause or Miranda or any of that stuff that gets in the way of "taking care of business." Instead, we are rushing the process that is due or ignoring altogether. 

Pete "Former Fox Friend" Hegseth claimed that cartels “have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same." If they are prisoners of war, then they have rights afforded to them through the Geneva Convention. If they are arrested or detained by law enforcement then they have the same rights as any prisoner. 

But just blowing them up seems so much easier. 

Looking Back

 Don't ask me for my review of Deliver Me From Nowhere. 

You don't want to hear it. Or, rather, you won't be able to make much use out of it. 

As I sat in the theater next to my son, a Springsteen fan perhaps by osmosis, and genetics, I nodded my head in agreement, and checked off all the points. From the TEAC four-track cassette recorder he brought to his rental home in Colts Neck, New Jersey to the pained interactions with his friend and manager Jon Landau about the album he created there. 

I waded through the stories about his childhood that I had already filed away as part of the legend. I had been reading about Bruce Springsteen's journey into the light for five decades. I had been listening to the music all that time. 

Carefully. 

The songs on the record about which this movie was made have deep and intimate connections to my life. Back in 1982, I had only recently become a devotee, having seen a show at Red Rocks that changed the way I felt about Bruce and live music. Living in the middle of the country, I didn't have as many chances back then to catch "the future of rock and roll." When I started following the saga of Springsteen's follow-up to his double album, The River, there was a lot of talk about an "acoustic folk album." My good friend and fellow fanatic felt this was just exactly what would be showing "the man" who really was The Boss. 

We were not disappointed. 

Back in the movie theater, I kept track of the songs and the inspirations and waited for the inevitable conclusion. Without press, without a tour, without the artist's face on the cover, Nebraska went all the way to number three on the Billboard Album chart. And it stayed there for four weeks. I suppose I would like to take the tiniest bit of credit for that. I would also like to take credit for the success of Born In The USA, which came out two years later and became a pop culture phenomenon. On second thought, I think I'll just let MTV be in charge of that one. 

When the curtain closed and the lights came up, I felt as though I had been looking through an old scrapbook, a feeling not unlike the one I had after watching Netflix's DEVO documentary. I tend to wear my fanboy badge pretty wide and high, so there wasn't a lot of details that I had missed from the careers of either the spudboys nor Bruce. I felt satisfied with my credentials as a supporter of their contributions to the world of music. Those contributions to my world. 

Walking out into the day with my son who has been to his share of Springsteen shows with me, we reflected on our shared experience. It was a reminder. Review before the big exam. 

I'm pretty sure I could pass. 

Happy Hour

 Last Friday, as is my custom, I was hanging out in the office at my school. This is part of the program on most weeks, but the week leading up to this Friday was particularly fraught. The discussion over the preceding days had centered around the turmoil experienced primarily among the upper grade kids. So many of the lessons and tools that had been learned over the past few years about how to get along seemed to evaporate. Petty disputes flared up where "using your words" had failed. Now the principal's office had become a mediation center and we worried about the step back our school had taken. 

A calm reflection began to piece together a source for the unrest. All of the stress of the world right now, with threats of ICE showing up on campus and the White House being dismantled and all of the adult shenanigans was creeping down into the traditionally unfettered minds and souls of the children in our care. As much as we might try to shield our kids from the outbursts of the Orange Menace, it would be ridiculous to suggest that we adults were able to hold it all in. 

By Friday afternoon, we were worn out. Creating a safe haven for the past five days had taken its toll. With all the phone calls made, parents and teachers reassured, we were ready to put this week on the shelf next to the ones that we were more proud of. That's when we realized that we had almost a quorum of folks assembled in the office who were playing Fantasy Football in our staff league. 

It started out simply enough, with our principal decrying her seeming inability to climb out of last place. This brought a flurry of suggestions and offers of help, but without actually trading any players. Then we all began to look at our lineups and spent a solid forty-five minutes engaged in the illusory avocation that is Fantasy Football. There was laughter and collegial banter as we all turned our attention to the imaginary after a long week of being tied to the very very real. 

We were having fun together. 

Which is precisely the moment when someone came rushing in to let us know that a kindergartener had fallen from the play structure during the after school program and had hit her head. Phones were shoved back into pockets. We all took our stations and brought in the ice packs and the gauze. We pulled up the girl's medical history and called her mother. And 911. 

In a heartbeat we became that professional group of caregivers focused on the trauma in front of us. Over the next forty-five minutes, Fantasy Football and the weekend disappeared into the background as we gave the tears of the little girl our full attention. 

Once upon a very long time ago, a teacher friend of mine suggested that we could write a sit-com based on our experiences at the school. "It would be kind of dark, but funny. Like MASH." That's what I remembered after the paramedics had packed up their gear and mother and daughter were safely on their way to the hospital and we cleaned up our triage and put things back in their place. For Monday. 

I was glad we had that moment of camaraderie, and happy that we could snap back into action when we were needed. 

Because we are. 

Unchaperoned

 I did not drop my son off at a lot of high school dances. I didn't get to pick him up from parties at his friends' homes. By the time his social circle and commensurate activities had evolved to anything resembling that level of interaction, he had begun driving his own car and took himself places and saw the people he wanted to see. Whenever he wanted. 

Which wasn't all that often. 

In  this way, he was similar to his father whose own high school tribe was primarily found in his parents' basement until such time as we all had our own drivers licenses and vehicles that allowed us to take the party on the road. 

This is what made it so very interesting for me to have the chance to drop my all-grown-up little boy off at a nearby church where he was attending a friend's wedding. The night before we shared dinner and a conversation about social anxiety, and I was struck once again by the similarities between dad and lad. He said that he was concerned about all the possible interactions that could take place at such an potentially emotionally charged event. I was a little curious, since just two weeks prior he had enjoyed the bacchanalia of a bachelor's party that eventually merged with the bachelorette party featuring most of the cast of characters that would be attending the actual nuptials. 

This was the part that would require a good deal more sober, reflective moments before the drinking. I could relate. I spent a good portion of my twenties being "that guy" at weddings and birthday parties and christenings and other occasions where the "open bar" was an invitation to relieve all that pent-up uneasiness. Suddenly, talking to someone's cousin from Idaho became a much easier gauntlet through which I could pass with a couple beers in me. 

And all these years later, I know that the moment that I started showing up as my authentic self, I became "the marrying kind." I know this because the woman I married told me so. She just happens to be my son's mother. 

Nice how that all worked out. 

I hope it works out just as well for my little boy. 

Cuckoo

 My childhood home was built in 1962. My family moved into it shortly after that. We were the first residents at 1715 Garland Lane. Other houses were still being built on this new cul de sac in northern Boulder. It was all a part of a growing suburban growth spurt brought on by the opening of a vast new IBM plant just east of the city. My dad didn't work for IBM, but we knew a bunch of them. 

So this house, where I grew up and spent my formative years still stands. It was where I took my first steps. It was where we grew a garden that produced primarily zucchini of extraordinary size. It was where the Cavens entertained the masses for four decades. 

When at last it was deemed necessary and appropriate for my mother to move to a townhouse more in line with her newly divorced lifestyle and economic reality, some tears were shed. My brothers and I had our memories there long after the toys and desks and comic books had been hauled out. There was that heat register in the basement under which my right big toe was caught and I lost that toenail, for example. Or the Blue Spruce tree my mother and I planted in the back yard that everyone else said was doomed to die as the scruffy sapling that we hauled down from the mountains. It stands today. 

At one point, when my son was old enough to tag along, I made a visit to the old homestead. By coincidence the new residents were friends of my mother in law, and they were happy to let me poke around briefly until it started making my son bored and anxious. The kitchen had been remodeled. The horrible carpet in the basement had been removed. The hole that I had shoddily repaired after kicking a hole in the drywall in a fit of adolescent pique had been smoothed over. 

But looking out the picture window you could still see the Blue Spruce, towering over the fence in the back yard. 

Somebody else lived there now. 

But that was still my tree. 

And my big toe longed for its missing nail. 

This was how I felt upon looking at the satellite photos of a residence that had been built at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Construction on that house began in 1792, nearly two centuries before my childhood home. After it had been burned down by a spiteful group of British soldiers in 1814, it was rebuilt. Over the next couple of centuries, additions were made, not the least of which was the bowling alley in the basement for Richard Nixon. Oh, and an entire new wing was added in part to hide the underground bunker placed there just in case something bad might happen. And the East Wing became office space for the First Lady and her staff. 

Yes, a lot of families have lived in the White House. But it took a real horrible person to simply bulldoze the history of the place. To make room for the Epstein Ballroom. 

Like the brood parasitism of the cuckoo bird, this brood is stealing our nest to raise their own awful eggs. 

Pending

 There are plenty of moments in the course of a week as an elementary school teacher that give me pause. These moments tend to fall into one of two categories. The first one is labeled, "Was this in my job description?" These are the instances in which I find myself doing things like rescuing a wounded pigeon from a curious throng of kindergartners. Children and bird are both doing fine at last report. The second category is harder for me to negotiate. These are the times when I realize my feeble understanding of the trauma experienced by most of the children in my charge go far beyond my creative writing degree. Years of experience have given me plenty of brief insights, but I am still routinely knocked off my pegs by confronting the challenges some of our eight year olds are regularly asked to endure. 

If you have hung around here in the place named for the measure of chaos in a place I call "paradise," you have perhaps become familiar with stories of this disconnect. This past week offered me a chance to double down on those experiences 

ICE came to our little town. One hundred federal agents were deployed to the Coast Guard Station in Alameda. The sweeps that have taken place in other cities across our state and our nation have begun, based on the island in the bay that was created back in the early twentieth century by the Army Corps of Engineers. This allowed the United States Military an edge when it came time to create bases on the newly created island. An Army base and a Naval base have seen their time come and go, but the Coast Guard Station remains. 

That is from where the ICE Storm will emanate. 

Or not. 

While parents and administrators and staff wring their hands about where they might show up, we stand on guard much in the same way we do for fire drills and earthquake preparedness. These are the things we should do. These are the things we shouldn't do. 

Heaven forbid. 

Because just like fires and earthquakes and wounded pigeons, they're out there. We hope they won't be coming to our door. There is plenty of trauma without them, thank you. 

Our job, mine and the kids', is hard enough. 

Near Miss

 So here's the good news: Police in Atlanta were able to subdue and arrest a forty-nine year old man who had called a family member, threatening it shoot up the airport there. "'I'm at the airport, and I'm gonna go rat-a-tat-tat," after which he abruptly ended the call. The family member on the other end of the call drove to the Cartersville Police Department to report the alleged threat, and officers alerted the Atlanta Police Department while providing images of Cagle and a description of his vehicle. 

Authorities were able to locate the man, who was unarmed, and locate his vehicle which was: Inside his truck, they found an AR-15 style rifle. The pickup was parked in a crosswalk just outside the terminal. 

And you know how tough those airport cops can be. Parking in a crosswalk? Was this guy crazy?

Let's go ahead and pile on top of that this was a convicted felon who was in possession of a semi-automatic weapon. Adding up all the various charges, including that parking violation, this man will be looking at some time away from the general public, with whom he seemed to have a particular issue. 

Since this incident took place at an airport, we can best categorize it as a "near miss." 

This is doubly ironic since the absence of air traffic controllers during the current government shutdown will almost certainly put us all in danger of more near-misses in the air if not in the ground. 

So Billy Joe Cagle, whose name I am not making up, will probably not be the cause of a mass casualty event anytime in the near future. 

It does raise an interesting quandary: If we have all of these metal and explosive detection systems inside the airport to keep folks safe once they are inside the ring of security provided by the TSA, how does one go about being safe on the way to the parking lot. And on the highway as you navigate yourself through the gauntlet of offensive driving and periodic crossfire that erupts as we travel the highways and byways. Don't get too comfortable in your church or school or movie theaters or inside your homes. 

Because the body count on this one was zero. 

We don't always get so lucky. 

The Worst

 He posted a video on social media for all to see of him wearing a crown and dumping "brown viscous liquid" on protesters. 

This is not allegory. 

He commenced tearing down a large section of the residence in which he is currently squatting. Not content to simply double-stick tape his ticky-taky gold ornamentation over hundreds of years of history, he has begun to tear up the nest he had been loaned to make it into some sort of ersatz South Florida resort. 

This is not a metaphor. 

This is a "person" who claims not to care what others think of him, but keeps himself insulated from any and all bad news to make sure his delicate ego does not get sullied by reality. 

This is not a case study. 

He is completely at peace with spending two hundred million dollars on a fancy ballroom that only he wants, and tossing forty billion dollars at Argentina while health care for the citizens of this country remains a sticking point, keeping the government closed.

This is not a "what-if" scenario. 

The only part of the cabinet meeting for which he can remain awake is the sycophantic roundtable praise of his dubious character and accomplishments. 

This is not a Saturday Night Live skit.

He continues to hide behind the thinnest veil of secrecy when it comes to his association with one of the worst pedophiles in our history. 

Not another episode of SVU. 

This is The Worst. 

And it's happening to all of us right now. Today. 

Light And Run Away

 Sergeant Hulka got blown up by friendly fire. I was forced into remembering this bit of trauma by the events of this past weekend. Perhaps this is because so much of my life experience is filtered through the films of Bill Murray, it was that scene in Stripes when the officer in charge of Hulka's squad, a Captain Stillman gives orders to a group of soldiers attempting to reassemble a mortar to fire without checking their coordinates or aim. Following orders, the men lob a shell up into the air that happens to land right on top of Sergeant Hulka. 

Boom. 

Spoiler alert: This does not kill Sergeant Hulka. By the grace of the 1980's comedy movie gods, no one with a name gets killed in this film. A bunch of extras portraying Czechoslovakian border guards seem to go to their ultimate reward as Bill rescues his pals in an urban assault vehicle that bears more than a passing resemblance  to Clark Grisowold's Fun Family Truckster. 

All of these eighties memories swirled about as I read the account of how (checks notes) Corporal Jose Delgado Vance was lobbing live rounds above the California Interstate known colloquially as "The Five."

What better way to celebrate the two hundred fiftieth birthday of the United States Marines than to pretend to make an amphibious assault on the beaches of southern California? What could go wrong? How about we use real artillery shells and fire them off over the main north-south conduit for the entire state? 

Whoops! One of them went off prematurely, and shrapnel rained down on California Highway Patrol motorcycles and cars assigned to protect (checks notes) Corporal Vance. An officer described hearing something that sounded like pebbles hit his motorcycle and the area around him, according to the patrol report. Others saw a two inch piece of shrapnel hit the hood of a patrol vehicle and leave a small dent. The report says shrapnel was also found on the road near the motorcycle.

Corporal Vance escaped unscathed. 

Meanwhile on this same day, Corporal Vance's boss took to the virtual skies in a video that depicts the convicted felon piloting a jet fighter, wearing a crown, and dropping "what appeared to be feces" on Americans protesting No Kings below. 

Get it? 

No? 

Probably because it's The Worst. 

Without Feathers

 Allow me to begin with this point of transparency: I have been, for most of my life, excited by the prospect of owning my own flying car. Each time an article is published somewhere about the potential availability of such a vehicle friends and relatives fill my inbox with the details. Is this the one? Are we finally ready for Dave to take to the skies? 

In a word, No. I remain almost exclusively earthbound. This is also largely attributable to the fact that my father suffered his own sudden deceleration trauma some years ago after he made one too many attempts to fly without his own set of properly assigned wings. 

Still, I remain a fan of Bernoulli's Principle and mankind's continued attempts to conquer the air in the same way they have the land and the sea. In, if you'll pardon the pun, principle anyway. An example of my frustration with this overreach was found in the article I read about John Travolta's three private jets. 

Three. All a part of the lavish lifestyle afforded the man who brought us Vinnie Barbarino. And the Boy In The Plastic Bubble. And a couple other things. Now, because he has managed his portfolio so very well he can live in a place where he can drive his plane, one of them anyway, right to his front door. When questioned about the wisdom of owning three jet aircraft, he explained, "It's a practical reason. I'm a pilot myself. … If I have one jet that's inoperable, I have one to back it up." While maintaining several aeronautical ratings, Mister Travolta seems to have lost a bit of his mathematics. That third plane? And what about this word problem: Private jets produced up to nineteen point five million metric tons of planet-warming gas in 2023, which is equivalent to the output of as much as one hundred seventy-seven  passenger cars or nine heavy-duty highway trucks. 

He can afford it, right? 

Well how about those civil servants out there, breaking their backs to support the public interest? While this public school teacher scraped together five thousand dollars to purchase a pre-owned electric car to be charged from the energy gathered by our solar panels, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has been given not one but two luxury Gulfstream jets to help her get around the country oppressing people. Not that the United States government isn't awash in aircraft that she could call up in a wink to fly her to her next photo op, but having these two planes at her disposal at all times means that if one is inoperable, she has one to back it up. For the bargain basement price of one hundred seventy-two million dollars for the pair. In case you were wondering, emitted over two hundred fifty-three metric tons of carbon dioxide in under two months, which is fifteen times the average U.S. citizen's annual footprint.

Of course we all know that there isn't anything average about Kristi. Or John. 

Or the extreme weather events experienced via climate change. I'll stick to my bike, thank you. 

Still - No Kings

 What a clever bunch of patriots. 

That was the phrase that kept running through my head as I stood on a corner in West Oakland, holding my very clever sign amid the throng of others with equally clever signs. How could anyone doubt the sincerity of this well-behaved protest? This time I even brought along my American flag. The same flag that once flew above the United States Capitol, the same flag that has graced my front porch for all the decades that I have had one on those occasions that required it. 

This was the first time that flag had gone on the road since it came to live with me all those years ago. The one that I have flown from the bracket I mounted at the top of my front steps. On September 11 and all the anniversaries of that dark hour. On Veterans Day. On Memorial Day. On Labor Day. Fourth of July. And sometimes just because the occasion seems to suggest a patriotic flourish. 

No Kings Day seemed like a good time to haul out Old Glory. It's not the property of a group of tiny-brained maniacs who have appropriated certain symbols for their own nefarious purpose. I made four very clever signs, but none more impressive and impactful than the Stars and Stripes. 

Neither my wife nor I followed through on our impulse to buy an inflatable frog suit to stand in solidarity with the Portland amphibians who have made their protest into performance art. That would have required us to push more money through the oligarch machinery of Amazon. If we were really as clever as we had imagined ourselves to be I suppose we might have found our own bolts of green polyester and a compact fan, creating our very own version of grown up tadpoles who have lost their faith in the current regime. 

Again: Very clever, but maybe not as clever as we had thought ourselves to be. 

I joined hundreds of my fellow Oaklanders, Californians, Americans to show that contrary to Mike "Shutdown" Johnson, we don't hate America. We love the United States. We do not love what it is becoming. We walked over to our street corner with a United States Marine veteran, whose sign may have been as on point as I could have imagined: "I fought fascism in other countries. I will fight it here." 

Clever. And correct. 

From the United States Constitution: Article I, Section 9, Clause 8: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 

Maybe not as pithy as my cartoon about Frogs Together Strong, but it'll do. 

Kids These Days

According to Jimmy Durante Vance, the “reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys.” The "Vice" President made this suggestion during a guest appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes, like, that’s what kids do,” he continued. “And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke — telling a very offensive, stupid joke — is cause to ruin their lives. And at some point we’re all going to have to say enough of this BS, we’re not going to allow the worst moment in a twenty-one-year-old’s group chat to ruin a kid’s life for the rest of time. That’s just not OK.”

If you missed the part where Politico shared a flurry of texts generated by Young Republicans on the Telegram app. These included racial slurs about Black and Latino people, praise of Adolf Hitler and jokes about sending opponents to gas chambers. Many of these "kids" were in line for jobs in the public sector. One of them lost out on a job working on a plan to work on a congressional campaign. 

Plenty of older Republicans have seen fit to condemn the hate speech, but since the demographic for this particular group of "young" Republicans range from eighteen to forty years. So none of these were minors, and the handwringing among the Young Republican National Federation contrasts mightily with the "what about?" messages coming from those who want to suggest that "boys will be boys" and it's no worse than a few texts from the account of one Jay Jones, Democratic candidate for Attorney General of Virginia. Mister Jones suggested the former Speaker of the House of Delegates ought to be shot in the head. 

For the record, I am fine with Jay Jones losing his election after letting loose with that sort of ugly sentiment. Is there a difference between pointing your hate gun at one particular person instead of entire races of people? I don't get to make that determination. But I can say that John Deere Vance is in no position to make judgements about decorum. Especially since it was not too many years ago when he referred to his current boss as "America's Hitler," He's also the guy who said back in 2021 that the country was being run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives." No regrets, just the insistence that people didn't understand what he meant. 

John Dillinger Vance isn't probably going to lose his job anytime soon, since he is being kept around as the comic relief in an administration comprised of some of the creepiest characters and morally bankrupt individuals assembled in recent history. 

So the bad boys of the Young Republicans will have to spend a few minutes in the time-out chair before they get back to fomenting hate and division. Even within their own ranks. Which is the problem with these ghouls. They keep coming back. 

Seasonal

 Morbid. That's the word that comes to mind as I look back over the past few days. And this glass from my mother's cupboard came to mind. It was part of a series of William Steig-designed cocktail ware Back in the day, we served my parents' gin and tonics in those glasses. This was part of a lifestyle that embraced certain elements of "morbid" that could be mined from pop culture. Like the "sick humor" of Lenny Bruce or riddles such as "what's green and red and goes ninety miles an hour?" 

It was an acquired taste, and given the number of Charles Addams cartoon books found in my childhood home this alone should have given casual visitors a clue as to what sort of morbid things were going on inside. In the summer there was a regular listening to CBS's Radio Mystery Theater, and plenty of Edgar Allen Poe to supplement our mildly twisted outlook on life. By the age of eleven I had mastered the pronunciation of the word "macabre." 

Horror wasn't confined to the Fall, but autumn certainly brought my family's aesthetic to the fore. Our house was an early adopter of what has become a much larger trend toward decorating for Halloween. This set me up for a bit of sweet karma when my college friend and roommate died in a car crash the week before All Saints Eve. The Halloween party we had been planning for weeks prior became his wake, coinciding interestingly enough with Oingo Boingo's release of their album "Dead Man's Party." 

Morbid fascination. 

Fast forward a lifetime give or take, and our beloved main dog passed on in the middle of October. 

A decade passed. My mother went to heaven in the middle of another October. 

So a few nights ago I was staring at the desktop on my computer and I noticed a folder that I hadn't opened for quite some time. It was labeled "David - English." When I opened it I was confronted by the advanced directive I had begun composing the last time I was feeling both particularly responsible and mortal. There were plans for my corpse. There were suggestions for music to be played. Mostly there were instructions for how I wanted to be dealt with when my number finally came up. 

The highball glass eventually found a home in my younger brother's cupboard. I got mom's piano. I want to find some time to sit down and really play it. Nothing morbid. 

Something of the season. 

Hey Babe, We'll Be Back To Pick You Up Later!

 There are a lot of reasons to run for President of the United States. 

To serve your country in the most meaningful way possible. 

A chance to provide yourself and your family a lasting legacy.

The advance of social programs that will benefit every American. 

It's a great way to pick up chicks. 

That last one may not always have been a priority, but JFK and William Jefferson Clinton certainly used the office for a bit of, shall we say, "entertaining."

This guy though. He's The Worst. The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist took a break from his discussion of his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before abruptly switching gears to comment on his twenty-eight-year-old press secretary’s physical appearance. He asked the assembled press what they thought about replacing Karoline Leavitt, then “It’ll never happen. That face... and those lips," said the serial philanderer, "They move like a machine gun, right?”

He's seventy-nine years old. With sores, we assume, all over his body, and cankles. 

Keeping this sordid image alive in your mind, please take in the glory of the "president" abroad, if you'll pardon the term. While he was trotting about the globe in search of a new tee time, he stopped his speech in Egypt for a moment to tell the Prime Minister of Italy that she was beautiful. And he went on: “Now, if you use the word ‘beautiful’ in the United States about a woman, that’s the end of your political career. But I’ll take my chances.” He then turned to Prime Minister Meloni. “You won’t be offended if I say you’re beautiful, right? Because you are.”

Prime Minister Meloni responded by smiling awkwardly. Decorum at state events probably worked in the former game show host's favor on that one. I'm pretty sure she could have taken him out with just a hard stare, but I guess that's how diplomacy works. 

But it shouldn't have too. 

This guy is The Worst. 

What's Right?

 Did you hear? Marjorie Taylor Greene, she of the shouting "you lie" in the middle of Barack Obama's State of the Union Address and generally acting as a thorn in the side of anything that didn't reek of the MAGAt agenda has "come around." A little over a week ago, Marge announced that she was having a moment: She reckoned that the health insurance premiums for her adult children would double in 2026 if the Affordable Care Act subsidies expired. She was able to follow this reasoning by applying it to  "all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district."

Elsewhere, Joe Rogan podcaster and former game show host broke with the MAGAts around this same time when he started talking about ICE. “Let’s just talk about the immigration thing,” he said to an audience of lemmings. “The way it looks is horrific.” Horrific? Joe, them's fightin' words! And he went on: “When you’re just arresting people in front of their kids, and just, normal, regular people who have been here for twenty years. That everybody who has a heart can’t get along with that. Everybody who has a heart sees that and goes, ‘That can’t be right.’"

Welcome to the world, Joe. Marjorie, help yourself to a little handful of acetaminophen as you attempt to imagine just how many other points on the path to reality you may have missed while sticking to your "party line." 

Your garden variety MAGAt, the kind without their own podcast or seat in the House of Representatives, has been steadily losing faith in their Dear Leader. The Worst has yet to plummet to the depths of his first term approval rating, but judging from the steady decline since the inauguration, it's only a matter of time. 

Meanwhile, the convicted felon ought not to ignore the appreciation he is receiving from folks like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, both of whom took a moment from their late night shows to laud the Mar-A-Lago Senior Pitch 'n' Putt Champion's efforts to bring about a cease fire in Gaza. 

When I was in high school I had a magnet stuck to my car's glove compartment in the shape of a pig wearing sunglasses, and it was emblazoned with this message: "Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and them." 

I guess what we're dealing with here is a bunch of blind hogs. 

Slippin Away

 I can remember moving into my one bedroom apartment down the hill from the University of Colorado. When I hooked up my General Electric deluxe eighteen inch television to the "free cable" offered with my new lease and turned it on, what to my wondering eyes should appear? 

Davd Edmunds' video for "Slipping Away" came roaring into my living room. It was the summer of 1983 and MTV had begun broadcasting two years earlier, but I had never lived with anything but aerial reception. The public television station coming out of Broomfield had been showing promotional films for songs on a late night weekend show called FM-TV, so I was familiar with some of the earliest experiments in the genre, but the idea that there would be an entire channel devoted to this burgeoning art form was thrilling to me. 

I left it on. I listened and watched like it was the radio. Even though there were certain clips in heavy rotation, I didn't mind because this was the future and I wanted to be a part of it. Music Television. All day. All night. On MTV. 

Mark, JJ, Nina, Martha and my personal favorite VJ Alan kept the hits coming. I would sit and stare at those three minute bits of crass promotion disguised as whimsical little movies over and over just in case something new would creep into the rotation. I didn't know it then, but I was becoming part of what cynics would label "The MTV Generation." 

Eventually I was told that the menu of channels offered by my landlords was being limited, but if I wanted I could sign up for cable TV to be pumped into my apartment through an extra little box that would sit on top of my television. MTV was suddenly so important to me that I didn't want to miss a single video, so I signed up with a little company called Comcast.

I have been paying this company an ever-increasing percentage of my monthly income ever since. 

Comcast is now Xfinity. Music videos are my links to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when my Friday and Satruday nightst tended to end in the same way: staring at whatever MTV would send me to sleep watching. 

But not anymore. This week MTV, or Music Television as it was once known, has decided to close down their music channels. Which pretty much makes them just TV now. Their corporate daddy Paramount-Redstone doesn't feel the need to program commercials for record companies that barely exist anymore. Instead they can focus on pregnant teenagers and a flurry of other "reality" shows that cost just as much as the camera crew to point at willing participants. 

Will I miss it? Not in the sense that I will flip around the far-too-many channels I have on my current cable menu searching out the Buggles, but enough that it rings in my head like that moment when you realize that things have suddenly gone quiet. 

Too quiet. 

Autumn Leaves

 Ah, Fall. Rich with tradition and color. The autumn leaves. The days getting shorter and baseball playoffs beginning. Football takes hold in earnest and around the country, college and high school campuses prepare for the annual ritual of Homecoming. Welcoming former students back to their alma mater, celebrating with parades, dances and big games. 

And mass shootings. 

If your school colors happen to include blood red, then it's all part of the pageantry. In Leland, Mississippi this past weekend, six people were killed and twelve more injured when a "suspect" opened fire after the big game against Charleston High. 

Down the road a piece came news of two more people shot and killed at a different high school homecoming celebration. In Heidelberg, gunfire erupted after their big high school's football game. 

As is our way in these times, no motive was immediately apparent, and townspeople were shocked by the violence that rocked their little towns. Shocked, but not necessarily surprised. John Lee, Mayor of Leland said after the attack, “We definitely need to crackdown on gun violence. These guns need to be taken off the streets.” These guns that one local suggested were "easier to get than a job." 

No word yet as to when the National Guard would be descending upon Mississippi, bringing their own guns to the fracas. 

Meanwhile, South Carolina had its own shooting party leaving four dead and twenty injured at a bar in Beaufort County that was hosting a high school alumni event early on Sunday morning. 

No word on who won that game. 

Happy Homecoming!

Goodbye Girl

 La dee dah, la dee dah.

This was the sound my head made after I read the news that Diane Keaton had passed away. Interesting to me that I could so easily separate her from the tangled mess that has become my feelings about Woody Allen, but Ms. Keaton was far more than simply Woody's muse. 

Please remember that before she ever appeared any any of Woody's movies she played the long-suffering wife of Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather. She came to Francis straight from the Broadway stage version of Hair. 

Then she started hanging out with Woody. It is interesting to me to note that one of her most quintessential performances came in 1977 in the title role of Annie Hall, released just a few months later was one of her more intense and gritty portrayals of a young school teacher of deaf children who becomes lost in a haze of promiscuity and drugs Looking For Mister Goodbar. In the world of acting we call this "range." 

That was nearly fifty years ago. Diane's last movie was 2024's Summer Camp, in a part that she spent the last thirty years perfecting: A woman of a certain age who is attempting to reconnect with that part of her life that she was missing. Usually with an ensemble featuring other stars whose careers had calmed down a notch, but winning an Academy Award will keep your name on a short list for quite a while. 

Especially if you're as talented as Diane Keaton. She was The Little Drummer Girl. She was Mrs. Soffel. She played mothers and sisters and wives, but mostly she was Diane Keaton. Tough, funny, confused, and to hear her tell it still best friends with her most frequent collaborator. So what if she spent the last couple decades playing off Steve Martin in remakes of family comedies from the 1950s? 

Because Diane Keaton was a treasure. She was in as many Godfather films as Al Pacino. She went to to toe with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson and made it look like fierce fun. And she directed movies too. Like her documentary, Heaven. And she was nominated for four Oscars, taking one home for Annie Hall. Plus a boatload of other prizes and honors that she self-deprecatingly dismissed in her own inimitable style. 

She didn't stomp on the Terra so much as glide across it, leaving an impression much greater than you might have guessed. She will be missed. 

Aloha, Diane. 

La dee dah. 

So Bad He Can Taste It

 To almost nobody's surprise, when the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 was announced, it did not go to (checks notes) a convicted felon. Or an adjudicated rapist. Or a former game show host. Or a serial adulterer. Or to a person unable to pronounce acetaminophen. 

Instead, as has been the case for most of the one hundred twenty-four years that Nobel has been handing out a prize for Peace, it went to someone who deserved it. For example, this year it went to María Corina Machado Parisca. If you aren't as familiar with Maria's work as you are with the bungling assaults of the Cheeto currently pretending to run our country, allow me to correct that.

She got her prize “for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy” in her native Venezuela. Which is not to say that a former casino owner and alleged pedophile couldn't win the Nobel Peace Prize, but it would be what some insiders would call "a stretch." 

It probably doesn't help that the alleged pedophile in question has seen fit to deploy troops under his command into cities he has decreed to be dangerous, making them more dangerous because of all those guys with guns running around. He changed the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War. Then there's the little matter of him moving his country from democracy to dictatorship. Not a good look for someone openly campaigning for a prize based on making significant contributions in the preceding year to "fraternity between nations," "the abolition or reduction of standing armies," or "the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Kind of the opposite, actually. 

Then there was all the whining. Not just from his pointy-headed band of supporters, but from the candidate himself. Like when he stood up in front of the United Nations and announced, “everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.” Later in this same rambling address he let this one fly: "Not only is the U.N. not solving the problems it should, too often it's actually creating new problems for us to solve. The best example is the number one political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It's uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined. Your countries are going to hell."

While it's true that the United Nations does not hand out a Peace Prize, the organization has been the recipient of several Nobel Peace Prizes over the years. 

Stupid, angry and jealous is a pretty awful combination, and our boy has all three in boatloads. Hey, and speaking of boatloads, do you suppose they should give any sort of award for blowing up ships that may or may not have been carrying drugs from a foreign country? And that country just happens to be Venezuela, the home of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado Parisca? The woman who said, “I dedicated this award to the Venezuelan people and President Trump because I believe that’s absolutely fair. We, the Venezuelan people, are absolutely grateful to President Trump for the way he has supported democracy and freedom in the Americas.”

Ms. Machado was elected to the presidency of her country last year, but the nutjob dictator currently in charge of Venezuela has been maintaining his hold through fear and intimidation. 

Sound familiar? 

Maybe he could get some sort of award for releasing the Epstein Files. 

Feeling Funny

 Lately I find myself reflecting on the latter days of Lenny Bruce's career. The part where he spent hours on stage going over and over the details of his multitudinous legal cases stemming from what started out with a pushing of the boundaries of comedy and became a paranoid, drug addled tilt against the windmills that were keeping him from being just a funny guy. 

He was.

Very. 

I like to think of myself as a funny guy. I have often been called out for better or worse for being just that. "You're so funny," people have told me. 

Lately, I don't feel that way. I feel like a crank hunched over his keyboard, pounding out a daily rant about the injustices of the world. Sure, I try to include some funny nicknames or a clever turn of phrase, but mostly I feel the need to rage against the machine that is currently digesting our freedoms bit by bit, hour by hour. 

I suppose the good news is that my drug addiction occurred early enough in my life that I don't feel that will be the cause of my eventual downfall. Instead I will be found sitting in front of a computer, staring wildly into space attempting to come up with a better way to describe the former game show host and adjudicated rapist who has been using the Constitution to line the litter box he uses not to relieve himself but rather to create the ugliest possible mess in what used to be The People's House. 

During The Worst's initial term I spent time each day checking into his Twitter account just to leave a pithy reply or saucy comment. My wife noticed this obsession and its effects on my demeanor and suggested that I take some time away. Then he had his account taken away. Then he opened up his own social media trough where he could screech his nonsense in CAPITAL LETTERS. Then his techbro bought Twitter and invited him back, but since his relationship with his techbro was tenuous at best, he decided to stay put, which seems to be one of his talents. 

Staying put. Let everyone else move around him. 

Each day I find myself navigating a world that seems to be almost entirely focused on his imbecilic lethargy. I am so very tired of stepping around him and his clown posse. 

It's not funny. 

It's overwhelming. 

I used to be a funny guy. 

And maybe I will be again some day.  

Give My Regards To Broadview

 This is not a third world country being run by an authoritarian despot.

Is it?

Scenes coming out of recent protests against ICE goons and their heavy-handed tactics with civilians and (checks notes) members of the clergy have caused even more outrage than the weeks of pent up frustration with the draconian measures being used in the events leading up to the attempts at creating a police state in Chicago and Portland. 

Like the woman who was shot by the masked kidnappers when they panicked and decided to use deadly force rather than make any attempt to deescalate the situation. Or the increasing number of moments when guns are being pointed at unarmed protesters, ignoring the cardinal rule of weapons use: don't point a gun at anyone unless you intend to use it. 

Especially if they are wearing a chicken suit. 

From her perch high above the "war-torn" city of Portland, Oregon Kristi "Of Course It's Spelled With An I" Noem surveyed a dozen or so protesters gathered outside. Right wing conspiracy guy Benny Johnson posted a video of the moment, he described "an army of Antifa and a guy in a chicken suit," and recorded the ICE Queen's reaction: "Hey; Guy in the chicken suit. You can do better. Too bad they are uneducated and ill-informed."

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Reverend David Black invited the ICE goons down to pray for repentance. he was shot with pepper balls, one of which struck him in the head and knocked him to the ground. No word from the ICE Queen about how black robes and clerical collars fit in with her lofty judgements about costuming. 

Maybe you are familiar with the Nicaraguan priests who were arrested over the past seven years for leading anti-government protests that the regime down there consider an attempted coup. Those who preach peace and tolerance are considered enemies of the government. 

That's Nicaragua. 

Here in Estados Unidos we kid ourselves that we are somehow above all that. 

Not anymore. 

The Dating Game

 How about a little science? 

Not climate change this time. Not nuclear weapons. How about longevity? 

Female mammals live longer than males mammals. But this isn't the news. People who do science for a living believe that they have started to figure out why. Researchers who analyzed data from zoo animals found that it is not only genetics, but mating pressures that may determine which sex has the longer lifespan.

Okay.

As a guy who eventually proposed marriage three separate times, two of them to the same woman, I believe this might have some credence. The happy news for yours truly is that I am still very good friends with that first woman, and the second version of my invitation to spend our lives together seems to have worked with my wife of more than thirty years. That union resulted in the birth of a son, who will face his own gauntlet of challenges as he attempts to select his mate. 

Luckily, there is an app for that. Pity the poor Pudu who cannot swipe right. Not unlike their human counterparts, this tiny deer's mating process involves a male following a female, testing her receptiveness by sniffing and grooming her before mounting repeatedly over a few days. It's that testing of receptiveness that really makes things tough for your average Pudu buck. 

But before you take me for your standard male who is bitter and bewildered by all the sniffing and licking, please understand that I believe that male mammals deserve every one of the rejections we get. If the ultimate goal is to settle down and have little deer or whales or what have you, then it is up to the female to act as a filter through which the species can survive. Antler size, lack of mange, credit rating, all of these factors need to be considered before allowing the miracle of birth to take place. 

Then there's the simple matter of the fits that male mammals throw when they don't manage to make a love connection: Nuclear weapons. Climate change. Dating apps. I appreciate science for shedding a light on this topic, but I think the answers to this and so many of our planet's problems can be traced back to over-anxious males. 

Driving Lesson

 Another day of government shutdown. 

Another day of Congress taking a day off. 

Another day of holding the party line. 

So let's take a moment to consider what "public service" really means. The online dictionary tells me it means: a service rendered in the public interest. Examples given were Health, Public Safety, Infrastructure, and Education. I take some great solace in that last one. As a teacher, I figure I'm performing a public service just about every day, which means I can periodically let requests for volunteerism slide of my teacher duck's back and wait for the next school day to roll around for me to be fully immersed in that public service thing. 

Meanwhile, a group of so-called "public servants" who got their job not just by volunteering but because they won an election are currently avoiding their duty. This puts the rest of us in the less than advantageous spot of having to do without many of those other public services not covered by Congress' Health Plan. The last time this came up, I remember that not only does Congress continue to get paid when the government shuts down, but their rather impressive insurance coverage doesn't lapse either. 

I bring this up because there are a whole lot of people who are currently going without paychecks or other benefits while these "public servants" hash this out. Meanwhile, the driver of this clown car is threatening not to kick those whose job it is to make the government run out, but the folks who keep things safe, build roads and provide for our health. 

Again: park rangers not Representatives. air traffic controllers, not Senators. And for sure not the aforementioned clown driving the car. All the public servants who are actually supplying service to their community are the ones being squeezed. 

Why? Because those in power chose not to use their power for good. Obfuscation and divisiveness are the tools of the trade for the ones at the top. Anyone can drive the clown car into the wall. It takes a really clever clown to avoid it. 

Now I Am Become Death

 "One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war," wrote Albert Einstein back in 1946. He was a pretty smart guy, so I'm believing that he had his wits about him when he wrote it. He was referring to a world that had only recently experienced the detonation of an atomic bomb, a weapon he made theoretically possible, relativitily speaking. 

World War I wasn't called that until somebody got an idea for a sequel. Then somebody got the clever idea to make war so unthinkable that nobody would want to go beyond World War II. So they decided to prove Albert wrong by simultaneously preparing and preparing for a nuclear war. The war we were trying to avoid was hypothetically called World War III, and was going to star Mister T. Or maybe that was Rocky III. For forty-five years a not-war was waged called The Cold War. That one ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. 

Which as we all know meant that everyone turned their nuclear weapons into ploughshares and everyone leaved happily in peace from then on. All the guns and ammo across the globe were melted down and turned into monuments to peace. 

No. Really. 

But not here. Not in this universe. 

Instead we kept on making more tanks and bombs and ways to stop people from living. Wars never stopped. They just had the precarious good taste not to bring the world to the brink of a nuclear exchange. Neighbors attacking neighbors. Invasions and annexations. Police actions. And the most ironic possible term: "peacekeeping forces." 

Of course eventually we tired of having all those munitions and no place to use them. So we started shooting up schools. And movie theaters. And churches. Suddenly, war was normalized for everyday use here in America. 

It was only a hop skip and a jump from there to putting our bored and heavily armed troops to work shooting and blowing up our own citizens. All in the name of "fighting back." Because not fighting was never really an option. Not killing one another wasn't either. And the best thing was that now we didn't have to worry about all that world travel. Killing people in our own country meant we could save money and use the difference to fund still more guns and poorly trained thugs to carry them. 

Honestly, how much longer until those "tactical nuclear weapons" are launched at our own cities with black mayors? 

How can we simultaneously prevent this catastrophe from taking place while we cover our faces in shame? 

Great And Small

 Goodbye to trusted friends. 

This past week was a difficult one, and in the midst of a particularly challenging day at school, in a quiet moment I checked my texts. One of my favorite people sent a note to let me know that her thirteen year old canine pal had left this world. This news did not improve my day, merely solidifying the day in the annals of those which I would rather not experience again. 

This came fast on the heels of the death of Jane Goodall. As I typed her name, it occurred to me how appropriately named she was: Good All. In a video message played to students in Pasadena, California because she was unable to attend she relayed this greeting: "I've been working on trying to make this a better world for animals, people, and the environment, flat out, since 1986, and one of my greatest reasons for hope in this battered world is the youth."

As a big fan of animals, primarily dogs and apes, this was a reminder of something more important than Super Bowls and the breakup of Nicole Kidman's marriage. Somehow we humans found ourselves at the top of the food chain and then decided to make it difficult, if not impossible, for so many other species to survive. Which might explain our predilection toward adopting cats and dogs and chimps and snakes and the occasional buffalo. We want to feel connected to the part of the planet that used to be theirs. 

Not everyone is cut out to be the steward of a different species. Some folks take on a pet as casually as one might decide on a new sofa. This is not the way my friend connects with her dogs. It's not the way Doctor Goodall met with the primates in her life. These were bonds that ran deep and left a mark. Lessons learned from those creatures we sometimes mistakenly believe are somehow less than us. 

Less? Because they haven't created complex ways to destroy the planet we all live on? Because they rely on us to open the packages that we insist on hiding their food in? 

Hardly. 

We are not the smartest monkeys. Not even close. We are the beneficiaries of the patience and understanding of a world full of beasts who have let us share the planet with them. We should return that favor.

Sports Ticker

 You might not remember that Danica Patrick, who used to be a race car driver, who used to date an NFL quarterback by the name of Aaron Rogers, was a big deal. She even did a commercial that first aired during the 2009 Super Bowl. It didn't really focus as much on her connection to football or race car driving or any other sport unless getting into the shower with another woman is a sport. 

Nonetheless, even though it has been five years since Ms. Patrick and Mr. Rogers (not that Mister Rogers) have been dating and even longer since she raced a car, she felt compelled to use her station as (checks notes) a podcaster to let us all know just how she feels about the upcoming halftime show for this year's Super Bowl. The one that was just announced, featuring Bad Bunny. 

"Oh fun..." she tweeted, "No songs in English should not be allowed at one of America's highest-rated television events of the year ... not just for sports."

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Bunny, he is a Puerto Rican rapper and has the Spotify record for most streams of an album. More than (checks notes) Ms. Swift. Since Ms. Swift turned down a gracious offer from the National Football League to perform on what Ms. Patrick correctly describes as one of America's highest rated television events of the year, the NFL figured they should find someone on a scale with Travis Kelce's fiancée. They landed on Bad Bunny. 

A potential ratings juggernaut, not simply because of his streamability, but because there are plenty of folks who will tune in just to see the ugly scene that Department of Homeland Security adviser Corey "not one of the fun Coreys" Lewandowski guaranteed after the announcement. “There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else." Suggesting that those who have been hounded and hunted for the past nine months would be foolish enough to give it all up for their chance to catch Mr. Bunny live at Levi Stadium this coming February.  

For his part, Mr. Bunny has stayed away from the United States on his current tour, with the exception of his native Puerto Rico, which just happens to be part of those United States, even though they don't get a star on the flag or a vote in Congress. If this is starting to sound a little like the Sharks and the Jets, I will stake my sports reputation on the infinitesimal chance that the green team from New York will find itself playing for the Lombardi trophy.  At least those characters from the West Side had the good taste to sing in English. 

Oh fun. 

Timing

 Let's say you had a plumbing issue. Not just a leaky faucet, but a bathroom drain that was clogged to the extent that the bathtub had filled with water and now it was beginning to back up some mystery solid waste in addition to the gallons of increasingly filthy liquid mixture. 

Call a plumber. They'll know what to do! It's their job!

Every so often, these moments call for patience since the plumber and/or their dispatch service cannot comprehend the scope of your emergency. "We'll send someone right over," you are reassured as the tub continues to rise and sludge begins to threaten spillover. 

Once that truck arrives in your driveway, you breathe a sigh of relief, certain that on that truck there is a capable professional trained in the ways of plumbing and carrying with him some tool or set of tools that will relieve the pending encroachment of the slime from who knows where. 

Taking a quick look at the situation, hands on hips, sticks his face down near what has become more raw sewage than anything resembling water. "That looks like a real problem."

Your heart soars because the guy with his hands on his hips is the same guy who helped you out last time. That time that he assured you that it would never happen again. And yet, here you are. With the guy who was supposed to fix it last time. 

And that's when he says, "Well, I'd love to help you out, but I'm going out of town on vacation right now."

At this point, a viscous fluid my father used to refer to as "yesterday's gardenias" begins to spill out onto the floor. With no signs of abating. Hope has vanished. The contents of god knows what sludge system is backing up into your house and the guy who should be fixing it has decided this would be a good moment to go off on vacation. 

This pretty much sums up my experience with Congress leaving Washington with the government closed. We're going to have to deal with "yesterday's gardenias" while they wander off to parts unknown. 

Thanks for nothing. 

Toxic

 There's this phrase: Toxic Masculinity. There are a lot of (mostly) men who flinch at its mention. Not because they are toxically masculine, but okay, mostly because the are toxically masculine. Jesse "Hold Yer" Watters insists that it was his mother's decision not to let him play with GI Joes that brought him to his lofty perch near the top of the Faux News food chain. 

It does make me wonder what sort of childhood Pete "DUI Hire" Hegseth must have had. The recently re-anointed Secretary of War called all his generals together and gave them new marching orders. “Out with the Chiarelli, the McKenzies and the Milleys and in with the Stockdales the Schwartzkopfs and the Pattons,” he railed. No more questioning our dear leader's impulses to invade Greenland or Portland, though as a resident of Oakland I wonder if the clock isn't ticking on locations with "land" at the end of their name. No more of this "gender" mishegoss. No more of this women in combat nonsense. “If you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions ... it’s time for a new position or a new profession.” 

At this point I feel that it is necessary to point out that Pete "er" Hegseth rose to the rank of major in the National Guard before he began his career as a "journalist" with (checks notes) Faux News. 

Now he gets to play GI Joes. 

For Real. 

This tattooed gym rat is leading the planets best funded military and making sure that "toxic leadership" was the kind that let weaklings into the country's armed forces. Without saying it directly, he opened the door for a return to the hazing and bullying that he feels made our fighting forces the strongest in the world. No more anonymous complaints of sexual harassment or racial discrimination. Pistol Pete believes that  “anonymous complaints” as well as “frivolous complaints” that resulted in “smearing reputations” and “sidetracking of careers.” 

I presume this means that those women who had enlisted in combat units will probably have their careers sidetracked because of this monsoon of macho, and let's not hear any of that whining about sexual harassment or assault. 

Frivolous.

Speaking of frivolous, the sexual harasser in chief showed up to give his two cents about the Warrior Ethos. He told the military leaders that the country they are sworn to defend is “under invasion from within” while suggesting that active duty forces could be used to “straighten out” cities run by Democrats. Furthermore, the convicted felon and former game show host said he’d told Hegseth that the military should use “dangerous cities” such as Chicago as “training grounds” for troops and later bragged that an order he’d signed last month to direct Hegseth to establish a “quick reaction force” for “civil disturbances” would be “a big thing” for the assembled officers to be used against “the enemy within.”

If you needed a better example of toxic masculinity, I suppose you'll have to wait for another installment of Jesse Watters' Rules For Men. 

By the way, Jesse. I played with GI Joes. They're dolls. 

Wasted

 The moment that really struck me was the part where the guy on the other end of the line complained "stop wasting my time!"

This was Mike. Or Terry. Or Bill. The customer service representative for some company that wanted to inform me about a new policy that would cover all my burial and cremation expenses. 

Starting from the beginning: I am not planning on dying, so the prospect of having my remains taken care of didn't seem like a priority for me. Not at four o'clock on a Monday afternoon after a long day herding my young charges at the elementary school. 

That is why, when the faintly robotic voice that came on the line asking for my age and other questions like have I ever been diagnosed with tumors, lesions, or any other difficult to insure maladies, I decided to play along. I asked Sally how long she had been a robot. After a mildly robotic pause, she insisted that she was speaking to me through a computer so there could be some delay. "Okay Sally, if you're not a robot, why not tell me about the weather in your area?"

Another automated pause, followed by a pasted response: "Wonderful," then "Are you between the ages of fifty and eighty?" I let Sally know that I would tell her my age if she would let me in on just how long she had been a robot. Which tossed me back to the response about speaking to me through a computer and there could be a delay. 

Realizing the loop in which I was trapped, I decided to volunteer my age. Acquiescing seemed to brighten Sally's mood: "Great! Let me transfer you to my supervisor who will share the details with you."  

Sounds of electronic switching, then I was on the line with Mike. Or Terry. Or Bill. Having introduced himself, I made a quick inquiry as to Sally's condition. "She didn't seem very interested in me as a person."

This brought a mirthless laugh from MikeorTerryorBill. "Can I have your name please?"

I told him my name was David Carradine. I spelled it for him.

This is when he admonished me for "wasting" his time. "That's not your real name." Perhaps he was familiar with David Carradine's work in Kung Fu, or his late-career appearance in Kill Bill. Or maybe he was staring at a list of telephone numbers with my name next to the one Sally had dialed. 

I queried , "So who is wasting whose time?"

It was at this point that MikeorTerryorBill told me, "It's been great catching up, but I have to get going." Except those weren't his exact words. Let's just say it was less than professional and certainly not cordial. 

Then he hung up. 

Another day's energy spent.