Always

 "Mommies always come back."

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

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

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

Very. 

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

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

Always. 

I Approve Of This Message

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

I wasted no time. 

I voted. 

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

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

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

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

Hope. 

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

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

How?

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

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

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

Are you sensing a trend here? 

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

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

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

The Dating Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy hunting, boys!

Catching Up

 Sexism.

Misogyny. 

Patriarchy. 

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

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

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

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

The patriarchy. 

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

Wait for it

The patriarchy. 

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

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, And That's Plenty

 I spent the weekend with a friend from high school. Not my oldest friend, but he is certainly in the running. The moment that bound us together was our first viewing of the movie Halloween back in 1978. Another time. Another century. Disco was in its death throes along with the King of Rock and Roll. Jimmy Carter was president. We had only recently stopped going to see Star Wars, later to be known as "A New Hope" in theaters. Video tape was something that television stations used to record news events. The preview my friend and I received was a nearly shot-for-shot retelling from an upperclassman who had seen John Carpenter's classic the week before. 

Seeing the seminal babysitter-killer movie with my friend remains one of my all-time favorite movie-going experiences. Even though we were prepared for the events of the story, we were not prepared for the manipulation we were about to encounter at the hands of a master. We had, since the coming attractions rehash we got in the band room at Boulder High School, spent days leading up to our trip to the movie theater pushing ourselves ever closer to the brink of terror. 

We had prepared ourselves to be scared. 

And we were. 

Coming out of the evening show, the sun had gone down, and walking around the block to where my friend's car was parked was eerily reminiscent of the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois on that fateful night. "The night HE came home." We were sure that Michael Myers was laying in wait in the back seat, or hiding behind that big tree just across from that dimly lit house. We had succeeded on burying the needle on the fear-meter, and it wasn't clear just when we might recover. 

Decades passed. We watched many more movies together. We went to college in different places, but whenever we got together, watching a movie was almost always on the menu. 

But none of them could touch our encounter with one of the most frightening films of all time, a bond we share today. My father joined the army with his high school buddy who would eventually become my godfather. My son's godfather and I lived through that one night of terror. It's interesting to see what things stand the test of time. 

Days Go By

 What would it mean to celebrate my cultural heritage? 

My wife gathered up all her creative impulses and shared them with a receptive crowd at Oaktoberfest, our city's tribute to German roots and beer. And polka and beer. And bratwurst and beer. And souvenir T-shirts and beer. Not unlike the annual  festivals held in cities like Munich, Berlin and Mountain View. These events are not dissimilar to the celebrations of Cinco De Mayo that break out across the globe, primarily in Estados Unidos, where anyone who can lift a cerveza can be an honorary Mexican. 

Saint Patrick's Day used to be my opportunity to shine on my blarney stone and go Bragh for Erin. I made quite a fuss about my roots back in the old country: The Emerald Isle, Ireland. Then somewhere along the line my mother did a bit of genealogy for my older brother's fiftieth birthday and discovered that what we though was a load of Irish turned out to be a bit of Scottish and a whole lot of English paste holding a wad of white European together. For his part, my older brother was content to shift gears and take on the whole Robert Burns Night with its haggis and whisky. He does draw the line at wearing a kilt, however. 

Me? I watch my wife of the Baumgardner clan embrace the enormous nouns and glottal stops that are her birthright, along with all those stein-carrying denizens of the Bay Area willing to put on their Oktoberface. I wandered through the crowds with full knowledge that for most of these folks this was only a day trip. I know that my wife and my mother-in-law will continue to share German phrases and stories throughout the calendar year. A celebration of their ancestry. 

This is not my experience. I might decide to feel bad about the relative void in my life without any sort of festival marking the significant accomplishments of those who came before me. Except every holiday or party that venerate white guys like myself that litter the calendar pages. So maybe I should be satisfied with that.

Your Song

 It occurred to me this past weekend that I do not think that I could accurately name The Song that my wife and I would agree is "ours." Not because we don't share musical tastes. We do. I have been expressly involved in generating a playlist of tunes that create a tapestry of our lives together. The mightiest challenge in this process would be winnowing down all of those sounds to one specific and special song. 

There was a time, when I was a much younger man, that I could have told you the song that I shared with my high school girlfriend, but she might disagree with me. Time has a way of making sentiment a syrupy and unfortunate thing. Add to this that I made dozens of mix tapes that described the arc of that relationship, and I was also privy to the songs that defined her relationships prior to ours. I was not above capitalizing on that fact by replaying bits of her history before me for context. Then adding my own layer of sonic frosting to that mix. 

Once upon a time I referred to those mix tapes as "an opera I was too lazy to write." A love story described in popular music of the day. With the occasional spoken word bits and themes to movies that made an appearance in our timeline. 

Eventually that romance ended, but the tapes kept being made. Rehashing musical references to what once was and a friendship that bloomed in the wake of that breakup. When love came back into my life some time later, that urge to document that new relationship with music could not be shaken. The fact that most of the time I spent courting my wife was done to a prerecorded group of songs some of which had already been road tested in my prior affair. I already knew the power of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," for example. 

But there was still so much to be learned. Rush, for example, is a very much acquired taste and in the process of wooing a potential mate should be avoided at all costs. I am pleased and happy to report that after decades of wearing her down, my wife no longer reaches for the volume control to turn down compositions by Geddy Lee and the boys whenever they appear either in the wild of forced upon her in a CD mix. No matter how clever that segue you thought you were making. 

There was music that showed up during the initial dates my wife and I took after years of being just good friends. There was music from the bin of surprise that came from the discovery that after all those years of hanging out that we might end up being, well, married. And of course there were those moments of revelation that occurred when we both realized that the snickering we had been doing about couples and their sentimentality was just a tad hypocritical. We played Etta James' "Always" at our wedding, for example. 

But if you're asking me to pick one or even a dozen songs that would define the rough outline of our relationship? Never mind. You might as well ask me to describe the colors of a rainbow. Easy enough until you start looking more closely. So if you're asking me now, I'll have to say that it would have to be "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" from the Ren and Stimpy Show. Meet me back here in a couple hours and the answer will be different. See you then. 

Weather Or Not

 How about this weather, huh?

As I have mentioned here previously, when a conversation turns to the weather, I figure we have reached the nadir of interpersonal communication. This is why I have a pretty strict policy when I am teaching PE outside on the playground and the temperature is somewhere above what could be considered "room temperature," then I ask the kids in front of me to take one minute to complain about the heat. Then anything else that is discussed must be about the game we are playing or the proposed tariffs on imported goods from the Republicans. Nothing they say is going to change the fact that they are not as comfortable as they would like to be. 

For the record, the past week was unseasonably warm in Oakland, and the children who ran and played at times under protest all survived. 

The same cannot be said of those in the path of Hurricane Helene. More than two hundred people died in that weather event, and there are still a great many missing. Like the heat here in the Bay Area, the storm that passed through the southeastern United States is a sign that points directly to Climate Change. Climate, as many of us know form our studies, is different from weather. Global temperatures have done little but increase since 1850. That doesn't mean that it won't ever snow again in Buffalo, New York. It means that all meteorological events will be subject to those extremes. 

Noted meteorologist and doorstop Marjorie Taylor Greene has taken this theory one step further, as is her fashion. Late last week, Marge tweeted, “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” This comes form the same mind that gave us "Jewish Space Lasers" in 2021. Back then, she was accusing The Rothschild family of starting a deadly series of wildfires in California. Following this line of reasoning, why wouldn't you expect that Democrats were behind creating one of the deadliest hurricanes to make landfall in the United States? She even backed up her claims with a map that showed how the storm's path seemed to follow a path that affected primarily Republican voters. 

Perhaps it's more of a matter that the average Hurricane Alley resident is stubborn and insistent that this new breed of storm won't touch them, and that their inclination to ignore science in the form of weather reports is what is keeping them in the way of catastrophe? But maybe Marge could riddle me this: Why haven't the evil Democratic Weather Wizards simply cooked up a typhoon that could take out Mar-A-Lago? Or would that be too discrete? 

I'm going to step outside and enjoy the sun while I still can. No more talk of weather until I say. 

What Goes On In Your Mind

 All this anxiety over the election and the attendant avalanche of email that greets me each morning does have me wondering: Has anyone else been reading the news or watching the video of the Orange Blob of protoplasm? It's easy enough to paint the happy midwestern face presented by the Vice Presidential debate on this past month and pretend that what is going on is normal. 

I can assure you, it is not. It took Richard Nixon years to dive down as deep as he did into his all-consuming paranoia. The convicted felon who has never won the popular vote in an election in which he was running seems to be on the edge of some sort of nervous breakdown. 

To be fair, if I were facing multiple indictments and half the country thought that I belonged in jail rather than within twenty miles of the White House, I might be more than just a little nervous myself. 

The latest filing from special prosecutor Jack Smith has been described as "bombshell after bombshell." Again, it should be noted that the space around the GOP candidate for "president" looks like an artillery range, what with all those previous bombshells surrounding him. This one seems to be taking more direct aim. This one seems to be pointed directly at the man who sells one hundred thousand dollar watches to help pay his legal fees. The freshly unsealed report includes new details of Trump’s disintegrating relationship with former Vice President Mike Pence. Then there is FBI evidence of Trump’s phone usage on January 6, 2021 as when overtook the US Capitol; and conversations with family members and others where the then-president was fighting his loss to Joe Biden.

Let's pause for a moment and enjoy the phrase: "Then President." 

As opposed to "Now President." 

That squealing sound you hear is that of the "Then President" insisting he has immunity because the Supreme Sycophants he appointed said so. To which the special prosecutor notes: “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one,. He extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.” All of this leading to the conclusion that the man who is guilty of so many things should stand trial for his attempts to disrupt the peaceful exchange of power, guaranteed in out Constitution. 

Will this be game over for the seller of watches not nearly worth one hundred thousand dollars? It is frightening to think that any major political party would continue to support someone who obviously has lost not just his grip on reality, but is attempting to foist it on those too "busy" to read. If there is anyone left in this great land of ours who claims to be undecided about this coming election, I encourage you to take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with this document. Or just watch the convicted felon babble for a few minutes about "the late great Hannibal Lecter."

Psst: I'll give you a hint. He's a fictional character. 

Genuine

 Maybe it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Vice Presidential Debate held this past Tuesday was one of the most cordial events to be associated with the pending election. Not that Julius Domingus Vance and Tim "Fixit" Walz are specifically polite toward one another's views and ideals. The polite, for the most part, exchange could be a reflection of these two men's Midwestern roots. This means to the outside observer that these two men were treating each other with care and respect, but for those watching in the Midwest, this was a knock-down-drag-out. 

Instead, I would like to suggest that this Vice Presidential meeting of the minds was mostly about paying tribute to one of the most decent human beings to hold public office: Jimmy Carter. The man who had the supreme challenge of bringing our country out of the morass that was Watergate celebrated his one hundredth birthday on October 1. The man who said, "We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams," and "My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way." 

That last one is a far cry from the current state of our political rhetoric, but it shows how this man was able to bring Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat together to forge a peace between Israel and Egypt. His honesty and candor got him into trouble at times, but Jimmy Carter did not shy away from the truth. And he expected us, as a nation to be able to handle it. With inflation raging and an energy crisis that saw gasoline at nearly a dollar a gallon, President Carter did not make empty promises, but rather he asked us all to look within ourselves to help bring our country out of the stupor of the late seventies. Traditionally referred to as "The Malaise Speech," it opened the door for political opponents like Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy from his own party. 

Jimmy Carter was ushered out of office by what is now referred to lovingly as "The Reagan Years," and the 1980s were a monument not to a commitment to individual accomplishment and support of one another, but a hazy decade of greed and excess. Jellybeans for peanuts, if you will. 

And now, forty-four years later, the United States is faced with another crisis of confidence. Will we follow the path of the former game show host, a morally bankrupt caricature of Ronald Reagan, or will we be drawn to the legacy of the man who founded Habitat For Humanity? 

It's no debate for me. 

Out

 Pete Rose.

I'll let you mull on that one for a moment. 

He went to the big diamond in the sky on Monday. He was eighty-three. He goes to his eternal rest with four thousand two hundred fifty-six hits in the Major Leagues. Second place on that list is the late Ty Cobb. Then the late Hank Aaron. As a matter of fact, there are only two players still alive in the top ten when it comes to hits in the Major League, and both of them have retired from the game. Which means that it will probably be some time, if ever, for that record to be broken. 

Most of you know that this kind of distinction should put a player in the Hall of Fame, but somewhere along the line Pete fell off that list to be inducted into Cooperstown. He had to do something equally as bad in baseball as he had done good. 

But first, a digression: When I was a kid in baseball-free Colorado, I watched the Big Red Machine of the 1970s. The team from Cincinnati dominated the National League of my youth. Pete Rose was a large part of that. So was Johnny Bench. While I was told to respect and admire the ferocity with which Pete played the game, earning him the nickname "Charlie Hustle," I preferred the more self-effacing Johnny Bench. Johnny played his entire seventeen year career with the Reds. Pete played for the Reds, then moved on to the Philadelphia Phillies before finishing up his playing days in Montreal. He returned to Cincinnati to manage the Reds from 1984 to 1989.

And that's where the trouble appeared. Pete Rose was declared permanently ineligible for consideration for the Hall of Fame because while he as a manager he was betting on Major League baseball games. Including his own team. 

Johnny Bench never did that. His rough and tumble teammate was the one caught up in one of baseball's biggest scandals. The "hustle" in Charlie Hustle began to take on a new meaning. From the time of the ban in 1991, Pete Rose declared his innocence. In 2004, he confessed to the gambling issue, perhaps with an eye toward making himself available once again to be enshrined in Cooperstown. 

That didn't work. 

And now he has gone. The base paths on which he stomped are only part of the Terra where Pete Rose left his mark. Now we have this cosmic discernment to make: If Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban from the Baseball Hall of Fame, do we feel obligated to let him in now that that lifetime is over?   

Running For Precedent

 How I miss those precedented days. Days went by without another scurrilous headline. Catastrophic storms were rare. Politics were boring. 

You read that right: Boring.

Not that they were not always intrinsically necessary and fascinating to the wonks and the policy fringes. I do, for instance, remember learning about tariffs back in grade school history, and wondering as most elementary students do, "Why do I need to know this?"

Tariffs are taxes imposed on imported goods with the expectation that the increased price will encourage consumers to buy domestic products instead. They are not fines levied on foreign governments directly. The consumers are the ones who end up paying for the difference. Not the foreign governments or manufacturers. 

Good thing I was listening to Mister Conklin that day. 

Which would not be such a big deal in and of itself, but each time the gutter is reached by the convicted felon chosen by his party to run for "president," I believe that we have heard the worst. Oh, but if that were true. This past week found the GOP candidate insisting that his Democratic rival was "mentally impaired," and should be prosecuted. This coming from a former game show host who has stared at a solar eclipse, incited insurrection, and has been convicted himself on thirty-four felony counts. He is also the guy who during his time in the Oval Office, altered a weather map with a Sharpie to show what he imagined was the path of Hurricane Dorian, which never did make landfall on the continental United States. 

This "very stable genius," in his own words, continues to spout invective to anyone willing to sit in front of it and continues to babble about the "concept of a plan" that will Make America Great Again. Given the connections already well known and established, he could just go ahead and lash himself to Project 2025 which would actually give him some sort of platform, he feels more content in announcing the upcoming reckoning of the country he wants to lead again. To get crime under control, the Orange One suggests, "If you had one really violent day.. .. … One rough hour. And I mean real rough. The word will get out and it will end immediately."

There is still a month to go before election day, and I do not believe that we have reached anything close to the bottom of the barrel. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy month.

Branded

 Full disclosure: In the mid-1980s I owned a white linen jacket. It was my curious nod toward being "in fashion." I say this because it was off-brand for me, a brand that I had worked for decades to establish. T-shirt and jeans were my thing. I could count the times I wore that jacket out in public, sleeves rolled up, on three fingers. It was a chance, a shot I was taking at trying something new. 

Oreos were first made, I hesitate to use the term "baked," in 1912. Since then they have been by their own account, America's favorite cookie. 

Coca-Cola was first brewed in 1886. They have been filling our soda needs for nearly a century and a half. First place in the pop culture was never in doubt, in spite of Pepsi's mild attempts at making things different they now show up in third place behind Coke and Dr. Pepper. 

Oreo and Coke have controlled the snack aisle for more than a century. Which is probably why both companies have felt more than comfortable playing fast and loose with their brands. I could go ahead and remind everyone of the New Cocke debacle, but after forty years by their own admission it was a mistake. Which hasn't kept them from playing fast and loose with their secret formula. My son harbored a perverse fascination with Coke Starlight back in 2022, using our basement to store cases of the "space flavored" version of their original recipe. 

Many of the same flirtations with Oreo's success. We as a nation have surrendered years ago to the notion that we needed twice the sugar-infused lard filling in the form of "Double-Stuf," opening the door for all manner of flavors sandwiched between those semi-sweet chocolate wafers. Sometimes you have to look around a little to be sure that what you're getting is a package of Oreos as the National Biscuit Company intended. 

Which brings me to the sadly obvious nexus of this operation. Once upon a time I tried putting myself in a Don Johnson wrapper, but I didn't fool anyone. This past week end, my wife and I were in the grocery store and we came upon a display for, I kid you not, Oreo Coke Zero. You read that right: sugar free Coca-Cola infused with Oreo cookies. The promotional materials suggested that if I looked around, I might find Oreos infused with Coca-Cola. At this point, our senses were too overwhelmed to seek them out, let alone purchase any of them. 

I am confident that this too shall pass. In another few months, Coke will be Coke again. Oreos will be Oreos. And I will still be looking for that white linen jacket. Just in case. 

To Hvae And Hvae Not

 Technology is your friend. I have tried to make this case for years. Decades even. This has a lot to do with the fact that I have spent my grownup life teaching chldren to use machines to help them learn. I passed this appreciation along to my son, who now works putting devices together and taking them apart to make other people's lives with technology easier. Better. 

I live in a house where I shout requests to the ether with the expectation that a series of machinations and lights come on or TVs spring to life. Just a few years ago I was burdened with light switches and remote controls. Now I can relax and have the Googles do my bidding. 

I am living in the future. 

At the same time, as I was typing that first line, I absently wrote "hvae." Before I could notice the mistake, there was a flash on my screen and magically that unknown word became "have." I didn't do that. The Googles did that. They obviously didn't want me to suffer the indignity of a typo. Then, when I decided to relate this to you all, the machine decided that I obviously didn't have a clue when it comes to the word "have." But of course, what I meant to write was "hvae" because it was the point I was trying to make. Then again, as I was explaining my explanation, the machine gods "helped me out" again. 

Thanks, Googles. 

Still, more often than not, these bits and pieces of electronic assistance are clever and appreciated. And they don't come with an animated paper clip that says something like, "It looks like you're trying to show off your sense of humor." We're living in the future where things are easy, or at least easier. Except when you hvae to make things work off the edge.