Run For Your Life

 It's here!

Not Election Day, but a reasonable facsimilie!

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

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

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

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

Thanks Danny. 

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

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

Taxing

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

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

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

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

Fit To Print

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

Fantasy? 

Yes. Fantasy. 

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

Fantasy? 

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

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

Sleep Spending

 It was a pretty straightforward dream:

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

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

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

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

Eventually, we were. 

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

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

But maybe not about how to be happy. 

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

Goofus And Gallant

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

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

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

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

One candidate stands up for health care for all Americans. 

The other guy has "concepts of a plan."

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

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

One candidate is a prosecutor.

The other guy is a felon.

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

The other guy is a xenophobic racist. 

One candidate looks to bring people to the middle.

The other guy denigrates those who disagree with him.

One candidate looks to the future. 

The other guy is stuck somewhere in the past. 

One candidate is working tirelessly for your vote.

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

One candidate deserves to be President of the United States. 

The other guy never did. 

Bottom LIne

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

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

Mike and Cowboy were my window into corporate greed. 

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

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

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

At all. 

How Much?

 I pledge allegiance

to the check that Elon will write me

and to those principles

I left behind

I only care

about the cash in my pocket

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

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

It isn't. 

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

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

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

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

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

Tenth Month

 October. 

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

The dead.

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

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

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

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

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

October. 

What Are You Going To Do?

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

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

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

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

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

Just to prove a point. 

What point? 

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

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

Sadly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nobody Knows

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

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

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

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

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

Or more. 

Nighty Night

 Did you sleep well? 

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

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

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

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

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

Until the sun comes up yet again. 

Show Biz

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

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

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

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

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

If only there was a banjo. 

Boomerang

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

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

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

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

But not forgotten. 

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

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

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

Because who knows what tomorrow will bring. 

Response

 A bridge too far. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Blame Game

 What happens if the good guys lose?

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

Blame me. 

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

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

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

If the good guys win, you can thank me. 

Later. 

Always

 "Mommies always come back."

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

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

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

Very. 

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

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

Always. 

I Approve Of This Message

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

I wasted no time. 

I voted. 

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

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

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

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

Hope. 

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

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

How?

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

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

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

Are you sensing a trend here? 

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

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

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

The Dating Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy hunting, boys!

Catching Up

 Sexism.

Misogyny. 

Patriarchy. 

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

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

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

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

The patriarchy. 

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

Wait for it

The patriarchy. 

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

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.