You Just Made The List, Pal

 The question to everyone's answer is usually asked from within: If there is no Epstein Client List, what is Ghislaine Maxwell doing in prison? Twenty years for something that suddenly does not exist? 

Ms. Maxwell was tried and found guilty, a verdict that was upheld on appeal, of sex trafficking in 2021. A jury determined that she was involved in helping to procure minors to be sexually abused by Jeffery Epstein. The guy who may or may not have killed himself in jail back in 2019 while he awaited trial for, you guessed it, sex trafficking of minors. Not everyone remembers that "Mister" Epstein had already pled guilty to charges of procuring a child for prostitution way back in 2008. Back then he served thirteen months of a sentence that included a great deal of work release. 

Those thirteen months are, by an overwhelming margin, longer than any of the "clients" that he and Ms. Maxwell spent in jail for solicitation of the teenaged girls that were procured by them. According to reports dating back to 2006 there was extensive video records made by Epstein and his staff for "insurance purposes." This is TV cop lingo for keeping evidence on hand for blackmail in case there was ever anyone who wanted to poke around in the billionaire's affairs. Video evidence of many of the high and mighty who might be brought low for their part in such activity along with their pal Jeffery. 

So how about this client list? With all that investigation going on for all those years, someone must have access to documents that could be used to uncover the rest of all this unsavory business. Back in February of this year, the "president's" lawyer Alina Habba told TV "personality" Piers Morgan that,  'We have flight logs, we have information, names that will come out."  When reminded of this issue a short time later, Attorney General Pam Bondi assured us that those files were, "sitting on my desk right now to review.”

That was back in February, when Presidental Pal Elongated Mush was hacking and slashing with his DOGE posse, and tariffs were just a threat just like our bunker buster bombs in the Middle East. 

Then things blew up. When the billionaire bros broke up, Mush suggested that he would deliver on the accusations connecting the adjudicated rapist to the ugly goings-on in Epstein-land. A claim he has reiterated as part of the ongoing feud between boys with too much money and not enough self-restraint. 

Meanwhile, those files and lists seem to have gotten misplaced at the Department of Justice. There's nothing to see here, move along. Nothing but a convicted felon hiding his tracks with the aid of a system rigged in his favor. 

But I will leave you with this: Given the way the former game show host has spoken of his own daughters, don't you think that's evidence enough? 

Little Victories

 As someone who periodically suffers from insomnia, I can say that I am eternally grateful for the evolution of television.

When I was a mere slip of a lad going to bed on a Sunday night, I carried with me the troubles of the world. My world, anyway. With a head full of anxietiy about what might happen the following day at school, I would often lay in my bed, alternately staring at the ceiling of my room or closing my eyes tight to force sleep to come. Neither of these strategies worked very effectively. 

Then there was the "sleep" function the clock radio at my bedside provided. Twisting that nob to the left allowed me to have sixty minutes of soothing music from a distant station fill my room with distraction. For fifty-nine minutes. Fifty eight minutes. I was far too clever to let the passage of time go unnoticed and if I was still awake as that switch went off I knew that I had just lost another hour long battle with the voices in my head. 

That's when I called my parents. At the time this seemed like a reasonable request. Hollering from my room down the hall from theirs, my expectation was that one of them would hear my plaintive cries and come swiftly to my rescue. It was their job to bring me calm reassurance that would help me settle into dreamland. But not without listening to a flurry of my circular arguments for why I would never fall asleep again. Sometimes it only took one of these mildly exasperated visits from my father, who apparently felt responsible or was not as good at rock, paper, scissors as my mother. If I pushed it past a second or third intervention, I knew I was going to be on my own. 

What I hadn't reckoned was that I had fallen asleep every night for more than a decade, albeit with some difficulty, but I had made that transition to Dreamland eventually. It was the eventual part that continued to confound me. 

Fast forward fifty years. I continue to wrestle at times with the occasional sleepless night. I have lived through being the parent to a child who reminded me of those struggles with his own sleep challenges. Many times those visits to his bedroom would set off a similar wave of late-night agitation in my own head. Which is why I am grateful that we had a television in our room. 

No longer does the broadcasting day cease at midnight, leaving snowy static in its wake. Now there are hundreds of channels to wash over me as I attempt to calm my brain into rest. I do this without the sound turned on, so as not to wake my wife who has her own stirrings to consider. I lay there, flipping about the channels until I find something that takes me away from the anxious moments before dawn. Something without a plot to distract me, or one with a familiar story that allows me to get lost in the tide that will lead me to rest. Infomercials will also do, in a pinch. 

In my memory, I can hear my father's tired voice reminding me of the inevitability of sleep. I try and let go of the problems of the day and those waiting just over the horizon. At some point, I feel my head sink further into my pillow as my thumb pushes the power button on the remote control. I have done it again. 

Little victories. 

Whither Weather

 Sometimes when you arrive here at Entropical Paradise, I give you a body count. Mass casualty events are something, sadly, to which I feel drawn. People die every day, after all. Accidents, old age, disease. There are a myriad of ways to meet one's maker, but the ones that end up feeling unjust are the ones that move me to speak my mind. 

This wasn't a crazed lone gunman acting alone with a manifesto on his laptop. This one was what some might refer to as "an act of god." If your suggestion is that God, or a god has a particular score to settle with the people of central Texas then I'm not sure what sort of belief system to which you are connected. 

Instead, you might join up with the real nutjobs who believe that human beings are at the heart of this weather conspiracy. Kandiss Taylor, who is running to represent Georgia in the House of Representatives, posted on the outlet formerly known as Twitter last Saturday: “Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake.” This was her response to torrential rains and flooding in Kerr County, Texas that took the lives of more than eighty people. Dozens more were killed by storms in neighboring counties. What does Ms. Taylor believe? “This isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation. If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder. Pray. Prepare. Question the narrative.”

Thank, Kandiss, but I'll be over here questioning something else. 

Meanwhile, Georgia seems to be a hotbed for weather conspriacy. You might remember Large Marge and the Space Lasers from way back in 2018. That was one of the bells she clanged to become a member of the House of Representatives way back then. Not to be outdone by the new shining light of the Republican Party in Ms. Kandiss, Marjorie Taylor Greene Is introducing a bill that will track "weather modification." Florida, feel free to make your joke here, has already passed state legislation prohibiting anybody messing with the weather of the Sunshine State. 

Would it make any kind of difference to take a half-step back from this problem and say that I agree with the ladies from Georgia? Human beings can and have affected the weather patterns, causing more severe storms and drought. It's a little piece of science called "climate change," and it isn't practice on some island lab by Democrats with machinery invented to disrupt "real weather." The flood in Texas are brought to you by more than a century of industrial gunk, to use a scientific word, that has resulted in an atmoshpere that has warmed to a point of being capable of carrying more moisture and therefore creating meteorological nightmares like the one in Central Texas. 

It's not fake. It's completely real. And it's our fault. Everyone's. Republicans and Democrats. Christians, Jews and Muslims. We are in this together. So go ahead and make climate change illegal. 

I dare you. 

Social Studies

 It is difficult to feel bad for Elongated Mush. He spent three hundred million dollars on electing a convicted felon and all he got was that "Dark Maga Hat." Well, the hat and he briefly gained access to every American's personal data. Now that he's on the outs with the Dear Leader, he'll have to go back to blowing up rockets and trying to sell them fancy electric cars that nobody wants. Which will probably be fine, unless Dear Leader follows through on his threats to deport him. 

The late, great Martin Mull once suggested that, "Hollywood is like high school with money." If this is true, taking this notion and stretching it to fit over the thunderdome called Washington D.C. might suggest that our nation's capital is like Ridgemont High. This might explain the extreme cliquishness and the seemingly impossible depravity that goes on during the business of trying to run a country. Leaving aside for a moment the plight of the poor little rich boy who couldn't buy himself a president, we find Thomas Massie and Brian Fitzpatrick.  If you don't recognize those names, they should be remembered as the two Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted against the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill." Laura Loomer, the crazy girl who would really like to be the First Mistress was quick to throw out the threat: “Good luck against President Trump’s wrath and his current $1.4 billion 2026 war chest,” she posted without any sense of irony on the site formerly known as Twitter. 

And good luck getting a date to the prom. 

Even though the bill passed and was signed into law, these two gentlemen will most likely lose their jobs for voting the way they felt their constituents would want them to. That's the "representative" part. Unfortunately that is not how things are getting done in Washington D.C. these days. The big fat version of James Spader in Pretty In Pink runs things and he won't have anyone messing up his version of the way things would be. 

Especially not public opinion. Two thirds of those polled had an unfavorable view of the "BBB," in spite of all the lies and obfuscation surrounding its contents. 

All of which makes you think that maybe it's a time for a change in Washington. Which is exactly what (checks notes) a certain South African billionaire is suggesting. Yes, Elongated Mush is now suggesting that he will spend his next hundred million dollars creating a new party. His newly minted "America Party" is his answer to the bully who kicked him to the curb. So, will it be the pasty nerd with exploding rockets or the adjudicated rapist? The Democrats had better find their own billionaire sociopath to front their party if they want to keep up. 

Bumpy Ride

 Fourteen years ago, on the Fourth of July, my family and I were visiting Washington D.C. In a rare outburst of Clark Griswold type energy, I gathered my wife and son and pushed them out into the heat and humidity of an east coast summer where we went on a forced march to the National Archives, where it was my hope that we would all have a chance to stand in front of The Declaration of Independence. On the Fourth of July. I confess that at certain moments throughout this journey I doubted my own commitment to our quest. Public transportation and our human frailties took their toll, but eventually after finding the end of the line and living through the time it took to finally take our place in full view of the one and only. For just a minute or two, I felt humbled. That piece of paper, encased in glass, was what started all this fuss in the first place. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

And that was without the aid of Chatgpt. 

This past Fourth of July I found myself wondering how those ideals had become so diffused. All men are created equal? Unalienable rights? The pursuit of Happiness? I have spent great chunks of each day over the past month taking in video accounts of masked agents who refuse to identify themselves shoving men, women and children into unmarked vehicles without any warrants or due process. Just relentless brutality against anyone and everyone who gets in their way. Meanwhile, in some of those same halls that my family and I toured fourteen years ago, the rich were given still more riches while those in need of food and health care were cut off from that promise of life and liberty. 

You can forget about the Happiness. 

I recalled a summer some forty years ago when the words of Bruce Springsteen pushed me into some of my first adult commitment to world politics. I joined Amnesty International in the hopes that I would be able to help those "prisoners of conscience" being held in gulags and work camps around the globe. I wanted to be a part of the evolution of our world. I put my faith an trust in people I believed who would elevate our worldview. We should all have those unalienable rights. Not just an ideal. A reality. 

 I could not have imagined that four decades later I would be watching the wholesale dismantling of all those hopes and dreams. Here in America. I listened again to The Land of Hope And Dreams, and was reminded that we are still on a journey together. Because that is what America really is, and we can't let go of that dream. 

This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This Train
Bells of freedom ringin'

Hold on tight, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

Up Yonder

 Upon reflectin, it seems as though the life and career of Jimmy Swaggart should have given us some inkling as to the depths of depravity Americans were capable. Not Jimmy himself, mind you. He was the same husckster he was straight along, but each time he was caught with his pants down, quite literally, he was able to wriggle free and find his way back to the pulpit. That million dollar pulpit. 

Televangelism is kind of a dying art, but in its heyday, Jimmy was top of the heap. His media empire kept expanding in the 1980s to include his own broadcasting network and a Bible college that bears his name. From his humble beginnings as a gospel singer and pianist on Colonel Sam Phillips' Sun Records (yes, that Sam Phillips), Jerry found his way to the airwaves on the radio and eventually television. By 1983, two hundred fifty television stations were carrying his weekly program. 

It was somewhere around this time that he told his followers, "The Media is ruled by Satan. But yet I wonder if many Christians fully understand that." That was kind of the setup for the moment that he was caught with a prostiute and summarily defrocked by the Assemblies of God. This led to his impassioned sermon where he wept and begged for forgiveness from his Father who art in Heaven and everybody felt like that would be a wrap for Jimmy. 

It wasn't. He took his show on the road to another network and got back to preaching. For about another three years when he got pulled over by police in Indio, California for driving on the wrong side of the road. With the reverend this time was Rosemary Garcia, who had this to say: "He asked me for sex. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute." This time, Jimmy's response was less tortured and filled with grief: "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business."

Speaking of business, Jimmy's son and later his grandson picked up the family trade, but neither one of them won a Grammy like daddy did. Of course, neither one of them managed to have the Bible college they startedd change its name to deflect unwanted publicity. 

Jimmy passed on to that next phase of his evangelical path at the age of ninety, having spent most of the past thirty years off of the public radar, no longer able to reach out and beg for money from his followers. When he went to that big revival tent in the sky, he was still worth five million dollars. 

Rosemary Garcia was not available for comment. 

Aloha, Jimmy Swaggart, cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis. 

What Stinks

 Okay. That lasted a little less than a week. I have come to realize that I am simply not strong enough to ignore the chaos that swirls around me every single day. It is one thing to avoid low-hanging fruit, but another when that fruit continues to drop into your lap and onto your head with a frequency comparable to your respiration rate. 

The former game show host is currently selling cologne. The adjudicated rapist is no stranger to the fragrance market, having Unleashed his Fight Fight Fight scent back in December, and before that in 2004 he had a bottle of stink called Donald Trump The Fragrence on the market. The most recent addition to this line is called Victory 45-47, and it comes in a gold bottle that shaped like an action figure of the twice-impeached convicted felon. Since his daily activity is best described as stomping about and yelling at people, you're not getting a lot of "action" here. 

Which brings me to the point I feel I need to make. The "president" has made a point of how he is willing to forego his salary for ignoring the rule of law and thumbing his nose at the Constitution. That gig is just the front for his continued stream of side-hustles that circle around his stock in a company cleverly named Trump Media. All those forays into selling sneakers and phones, always with his predilection toward gold-plating things, are what he does to keep his other empire alive while he does his best to pad his nest in the Oval Office. If you believe that a sitting American President needs to take time out of his busy day to sell perfume, then maybe you haven't been keeping track of current events. 

And, if you are so inclined, you can feel free to take this opportunity to imagine what this eau de toilette smells like. I would imagine something along the lines of the cushion of the seat on his golf cart after nine holes. Or maybe the faint whiff of bathroom trouble. Perhaps it''s reminiscent of the smell of lubricant that should have been used to grease the treads of the tanks in his birthday parade. Some might suggest that they smell like napalm in the morning, which given the Dear Leader's fascination with bombs might make sense. 

Now I would like to insert my own feelings about cologne in general. I am not a fan. This additional aroma layered on top of our human stink is there to distract and confuse us. Some people are good at wearing just a hint of something to catch our olfactory senses off guard. I am not guessing that is what your average MAGAt will be doing with this junk, slathering it on in hopes of smelling like their cult leader. 

You can't cover up stupid. 

This Land

 This land is your land. 

This land is my land. 

From California to the New York Island. 

Thanks to Amerigo Vespucci, that is. If you don't have an encyclopedic memory for such things, Mister Vespucci was the guy who correctly pointed out that Christopher Columbus had not managed to sail around the world to Asia, but had run into a completely different continent. For his navigational cleverness, folks back then started calling this new place Vespucciland. Finding that is didn't have quite the ring they were hoping for, they went with his first name, anglicized to "America." He got two continents. His buddy Chris eventually got a city in Ohio named for him.

Then, for a couple hundred years things stayed pretty quiet. Back then it was a whole lot easier to "discover" places than to commit to actually living there. Probably the one star ratings from the folks in Roanoke just before they all disappeared had something to do with that. As it turns out, the best way to get folks to move to a new country is to chase them out of the places where they had overstayed their welcome. I'm looking at you, William Bradford. 

Suddenly, Amerigoville was open for business. Which came as a bit of a shock to the people who had been inhabiting hills and valleys for centuries prior, but heck, why not help the new kids out? Have a big dinner and invite everyone? A couple years later, another big party was held, but there were mostly white faces sitting around that table. 

And so it went for the next hundred years or so until the east coast of this "America" place was full up. So full in fact that rather than sending boats back with troublemakers to England and so forth, it was decided that we would start pushing west instead, "discovering" all kinds of strange new worlds and new civilizations to disrupt and overwhelm. We said goodbye to the King and set about making ourselves a brand new country. 

From the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters. 

And it's about there that most renditions of Woody Guthrie's song stop. They don't go on to that next verse: 

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
Sign was painted, said, "Private Property"
But on the back side, it didn't say nothing
This land was made for you and me

So here we are, nearly two hundred fifty years after Cornwallis handed his sword to George Washington and said, "You're a nation." and we're trying so very hard to make ourselves out to be "great." Again. And just how do we go about doing this? By rounding up immigrants who helped make this land and sending them somewhere else. This land was made for them every bit as much as it was made for you and me. That's what the voice was "a-sounding." You and me. 

Us. 

Get it? 

Strategy

 Seventy percent of the world's electric vehicles are made in one country. These cars "have far superior in-vehicle technology. Huawei and Xiaomi are in every car," Ford's CEO Jim Farley said. "You get in, you don't have to pair your phone. Automatically, your whole digital life is mirrored in the car."

"Beyond that, their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West," added Farley. 

Wait a second. "In the West." This country that he's talking about, could it be the United States?

In a word, "no." In some more words, I have to admit that this post is not precisely the happy news promised earlier this week, but rather a side trip down "Warning Street." Ford's CEO has made several visits to China over the past several months and has returned "humbled," to use his word

"I don't like talking about the competition so much, but I drive the Xiaomi," Farley said of the Xiaomi Speed Ultra 7. The SU7 is Xiaomi's maiden electric vehicle. "We flew one from Shanghai to Chicago, and I've been driving it for six months now, and I don't want to give it up." For those of you unfamiliar, Xiaomi is the world's second largest producer of cellular telephones and a consumer electronics company based in Beijing. 

And they make cars. Electric cars. The retail price for the newest version of their "luxury high-performance SUV" is less than the Tesla Model Y. 

This is good news for a planet that needs more electric cars. It does seem a little confounding since Ford recently announced that they were shifting their focus away from all-electric vehicles and back to hybrid versions of those same cars, primarily SUVs. This announcement came from the Ford's CFO, John Lawler. Which made me wonder if John and Jim ever sit down and discuss business. 

The car business. The future is out there. It just may not be found in America. 

Stirrings

 It has not been a good summer for sleep. As I have mentioned here recently, I have had a head full of trouble and I suppose I only have myself to blame for the poor sleep hygiene. 

Unless I want to blame the cat. 

The feline with whom I live has a rather demanding schedule that includes a great many naps throughout the day. I tend not to notice these when I am working because I am working. Not checking in on his lengthy lolls about on the couch. Our bed. In the spot of sun in the back room. Back to the couch again. Onto the table that looks out on the front yard. He's getting plenty of rest. I know this because I am witness to it while I make my way through this "vacation." 

When he's awake and moderately alert, he will mince about the house, vocalizing his moderate displeasure with the lack of attention he is receiving. My wife and I alternate replies to his plaintive cries. She prefers to speak to him in her native tongue. I choose to greet him in his own vernacular. This does not have the effect of confusing or calming him. He seems to believe that we are carrying on a conversation. 

Which brings us to those late nights and early mornings, when he feels completely comfortable entering our room and shouting at the top of his lungs. It would seem that he is expressing his deep and abiding concern that we have forgotten about him. Not that we should be attending to his needs and feed at four in the morning. During the school year I can shut out his lamentations until six, when my day begins and there is some inkling that we are sharing breakfast. Have a good day at work, he murmurs before loping off to the bedroom to curl up on  my side of the bed. The space I have left empty for him to begin a had day's nap. 

But now it's summer, and I have this absurd notion that I should be able to catch up on the rest that I have missed. Couple this nocturnal predilection with my own inability to nap myself and we end up with loose ends of a sleep cycle. My recent bouts with insomnia have not helped me manage any better, and the cat seems pleasantly amused by my late-night ramblings. Whatcha doin'? Are we going to eat now? Sounds great! He has a running commentary for a time that I wish was only a dream. 

This too, we are told, shall pass. Soon enough the daily rituals will return to normal. Whatever that is. I suppose it has something to do with a cat sitting on my chest and staring at me, waiting none too patiently for me to use my opposable thumbs to open that new can of cat food. 

Sunshine!

 In keeping with my vision of a less-snarky Entropical Paadise, I would like to put forth the news of this bit of legislation coming from our friends in the Sunshine State.

Yes, I know this puts me at odds with so much of what goes on down in that pendulous appendage to the lower forty-eight, but when something good happens, I feel it bears mentioning. 

At least that's what I am trying to do. 

In a flurry of new Florida State laws set to go into effect over the coming year the lawmakers and governor have made many choices. I will steer away from some of those with which I wholeheartedly disagree, I will focus on the happy news: An education package that includes a ban on cellphone use by students during school hours. Once upon a time I am sure that visionaries imagined that encouraged a trend toward school kids having their own personal research devices were thrilled at the prospect of having a room full of Internet access. The immediate response of children with access to Al Gore's Internet was not to collect bookmarks to educational websites and content. They were in it for the YouTube. And the TikTok. And the games. Not unlike their adult counterparts. Most of all, they wanted to text each other. Not with the answers to this week's Algebra homework, but with the latest update on the happenings in the bathroom. 

So, I'm okay with that portion of the legislative agenda in Florida. The other educational themed codicil that allows those students who participate in marching band to receive physical education or performing arts credit. As a recovering member of the Boulder High School Marching Panthers, class of 1980, I might have graduated a semester early for all the time I spent hanging around in the band room. 

Okay. Then there was a whole lot of other mess much more in line with what we expect to come from Ron DeSantis and his lawmaking pals. But I'm not going into it now because I'm honorbound to try and shine a light on the good things. Even if they are very hard to find among the DeSantis Detritus. 

Just A Crack

 If I told you that I don't particularly enjoy bringing you daily updates from the front, would you believe me? 

There are hundreds, thousands, millions of topics that would fill this space rather than continue to mine each fresh disgrace, each new scandal, each massive challenge to the human spirit that I could choose to write about rather than fishing around in the drain for the freshest goo to lay out in front of my dear readers. 

I had this inkling that I could use this space to bring some much-needed fresh air to a world that is sorely lacking just that. I also had a notion that I could spend the summer trying to stop the wars that rage across the globe. I could campaign to keep fluoride in our water supply. 

I could try to solve income inequality. 

Instead of pushing on all those buttons that we already know, I could be striking a blow for the have-nots. Instead of languishing in the doldrums, I could be shedding light. I find it difficult to be waking up in the wee hours of the morning with an axe to grind. Sharing my own attempts with tilting at windmills seems like a noble pursuit if I am not simply rehashing the fetid reality that lurks just outside all of our front doors. I want to be part of a solution.

So I am going to try and pursue some happy stories for a while. Like the one where my son sat down with his parents last weekend for just a few minutes, thanking us for being dependable. We have maintained a place for us, for our family, in a world that doesn't always reward that kind of mild consistency. A home where thoughts and feelings can be expressed and we still say "I love you" when it's time to part ways. 

This does not feel like I am putting an end to conflict in the Middle East, but it will have to do as a start. There is a crack in everything, Leonard Cohen once wrote, that's how the light gets in. 

Checks And Balances

 A completely non-comprehensive list of all the things for which this "president" should get Congressional approval first:

Going to war in the MIddle East. 

Paving over the Rose Garden.

Going to war with Mexico.

Wearing white after Labor Day. 

Going to war with Greenland.

Going to war with the Rose Garden. 

Having "one more Diet Coke."

Tweeting. 

Texting. 

Typing of any kind. 

Use of the National Guard to clear out peaceful protests.

Use of the National Guard to clear a path to the breakfast bar.

Orchestrating a multi-million dollar parade because "he's a big boy now."

Dancing. 

Using the "little dictator's room."

Using the stairs. 

Speaking in public. 

Speaking in private. 

Speaking.

Taping up Xerox pictures of himself "winning" the Mar-A-Lago Seniors Golf tournament around the White House.

Going to war with sharks. 

Frigntening children. 

Frightening adults. 

Using any part of his brain beyond the hypothalamus. 

Actions in addition to this list can be made as more indictments and embarrassments pile up. 

Thank you for your cooperation. 

Limitations

 Ah yes. The Chevrolet Vega. The car I drove through high school and eventually into history. I put a number of stereos into that car. I have a very visceral memory of a group of my friends all attacking the panels in the back seat, with hacksaws and metal snips attempting to create holes big enough for my fancy new triaxial speakers to fit. It was, as Steve Martin once described comedy, not pretty. 

The reason for the somewhat frequent changes in hardware was simply because of the speed at which new technology was being unleashed. AM and FM were simply not enough when it came to the sounds emenating from your car. You needed a cassette deck. Then you needed an auto-reverse cassette deck. And when I had reached that plateau, there was a graphic equalizer to attach to that machine along with those previously mentioned advanced speakers. More bass. More volume. More music. And once the bending and tearing was all done, the wires were stuffed back behind the dashboard and waited for the next permutation to be applied.

This wave of car stereo nostalgia comes crawling back out of the swamp of my memory to make me wonder what I thought I was thinking when I took on the task of putting a new radio into our little electric car. There were hours of research done in order to find the compatible machine. I was burdened by the new term "head unit," which brought not just AM and FM and who would want a cassette or CD player when there was Bluetooth available as well as satellite navigation? This wasn't just a car stereo I was installing. I was suddenly thrust into the role of brain surgeon. 

I watched a number of videos, taking careful note of the wiring harnesses and the plug and play aspect of the installation, feeling confident that the chore I was embarking on would take me a few hours but leave me with a fancy new machine that would do my bidding and respond to all my commands. 

Sadly, I was not the first person to have this idea. The previous owner of our little Fiat had put his own new "head unit" in to replace the factory version, and when I got ready to attach our new version, the edits that had been made previously to the wiring stuffed back behind this dashboard were not like the ones I had studied on YouTube. I got the lights to come on, but no sound came from the speakers. I found the speaker wires and could not jam then into any of the nicely prepared modular sockets. I resorted to my Vega days and began to strip wires and attempted to splice them into the color coded spaghetti that lay before me. Black with black. White with white. White with black stripe to white with black stripe. What about this purple one? 

After an hour of making things worse instead of better, I surrendered. I went back inside and called a professional. In the forty-some years in between my initial forays into creating vehicular sound systems, my knowledge base had dissipated. I was in a strange new world. A world in which giving up and paying someone far more knowledgeable and far younger than I to make this thing work. 

So I can play music from the 1980's as I drive my fancy new electric car around a brave new world.  

Let Your Scent Speak

 "I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after twenty-five years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we actually have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives."

If you've been curious about what the Vice (and if you're wondering about "Vice" yes we include molesting furniture) President has been up to, those were the words Julius Domingo Vance used to calm the Americans who are exhausted by foreign entanglements in the Middle East.

Sort of makes you wish that he would have stayed curled up in the basket at the end of the bed.

This oddly stilted reassurance came in the midst of the former game show host, Mister Tarrif, announcing a cease-fire between Israel and Iran. A cease-fire that included a missile attack on the United States military base in Qatar as well as targets inside Israel. Israel retaliated by bombing a radar station near Tehran. Doesn't sound like a "cease-fire" to me. 

Sounds to me, if I may be allowed to echo the pejorative used by Juan Dulce Vance, like someone was being a little dumb. 

Dropping bombs on people doesn't send a message of peace, especially when you call your mission "Midnight Hammer." Unless you're promoting a new fragrance from Dior, those kinds of names tend to incite violence rather than deter it. Like knowing that dad's arm can't really reach you in the back seat, you can just go right ahead smacking your brother. Until somebody pulls the car over. 

Or until we send troops in "to establish and advise" the terms of this illusory settlement. But history suggests that doesn't really work either. Not learning from histoy is dumb. 

But nobody said these guys were smart. 

Typing Monkeys

 “Now what has been done is done and Americans now fear Iranian terrorists attacks on our own soil and being dragged into another war by Netanyahu when we weren’t even thinking about any of this a week ago.”

This pronouncement on the bombing by U.S. planes on nuclear facilities in Iran echoes what many citizens of this great land of ours are feeling. It certainly struck a chord with me. 

The only real problem with this, for me, is that it came from the Twitter account of one (checks notes) Marjorie Taylor Greene. There is not room here in this post to detail all the ways in which Marge and I disagree, and yet here I am. Agreeing with something Marge wrote in her social media. I am reminded of that analogous room in which infinite monkeys are given infinite typewriters and eventually they produce the works of Shakespeare. Research has been done on the monkey thing, but yet here I am, left with something an evolving primate has pounded out on a tiny keyboard that resonates with me. 

Not the plays of Bil Shakespeare or even a sonnet, but a thought from someone with with whom I have been ideologically opposed since she first started chasing victims of mass shootings around insisting that they were fake. What we have here is called cognitive dissonance. 

Speaking of monkeys being right, it was just a few days ago when another pair of them sat down in front of television cameras to argue next steps against Iran. Ted "Cancun" Cruz and Tucker "Seemingly Everlasting" Carlson got into it about the "president's" plan to bomb Iran. Suddenly I was thrust into yet another confounding situation wherein I found myself leaning toward the shrieks of (checks notes again) Young Tuck as he dismantled Ted's obedience to his dear leader's insistence that we topple the regime of a country about which he knows nothing about. 

So there I was, left with that lingering aphorism about how the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And not at all comfortable with it. And yet, as I sat with this long enough, I took heart on the topic of regime change. The center, if we can call it that, is not holding for the Second Trumpreich. These people hate each other almost as much as they hate the Constitution. This gives me hope in the form of a poem by William Butler Yeats.  I apologize for not being able to supply you with the number of monkeys required to reproduce that work. 

Their Kind Of Promises

 Promises were made to be broken. While we have all been trying to catch up with the insane posse of clowns who are currently at the controls of our country, each new day brings a new threat or assurance that comes with some sort of odd plan or timeframe. The suggestion that we should all wait and see what happens over the next two weeks in Iran was yet another bait and switch. Any notion of diplomacy was thrown straight out the window when B2 bombers dropped multiple "bunkerbusters" on nuclear sites in three cities. 

I would imagine part of this plan involved getting the jump on any thoughts our defense community had about chatting it up on an unsecured channel on Signal. It would also go a long way toward diminishing that "TACO" meme. 

What happens next? Well we stopped talking about the Epstein Files. We had our attention diverted from the ICE raids in Los Angeles. The paving over of the Rose Garden at the White House seems like a pretty distant memory. All because the former game show host and the only man to ever direct the use of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators in war. A total of fourteen of these "MOP"s were used to destroy Iran's capacity to create their own nuclear weapon. Operation "Midnight Hammer" was a success not only for its destruction, but also for coming up with a really cool name for a sneak attack. 

Why did we need a sneak attack with a really cool name? Well, history will tell us that it is important to keep certain countries from possessing weapons of mass destruction. Especially in the Middle East. The fact that this act of aggression on our part bypassed Congress kept it all the more secret. And illegal. 

The Second Trumpreich is no stranger to illegality. They have been sending masked federal kidnappers into homes and schools and business across southern California in order to meet the quotas set by Stephen "Nosferatu" Miller to cleanse the country of "undesirables." In defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the Clown Cabinet has sent in federal troops to quell the chaos that they have generated. 

This proved to be very unpopular and ended up distracting the country from the Circus Parade with tanks on the adjudicated rapist's birthday. So in order to up the ante on distractions, the twice-impeached "president" figured his assurance that he would end wars could be set aside for one big aerial display of the military strength he has longed to project. 

Like those promises to stop inflation by raising tariffs, this new "peace through strength" angle is yet another stab in the dark at appearing to be large and in charge. The consequences of his actions were never considered. What will be the long-term effects of bullying a known terrorist threat? Won't Iran just apologize and go back to imagining a quiet coexistence in a region that hasn't had peace since 1917? 

Or maybe you'd like to buy a new gold phone? 

Awakened

I woke up much earlier on my birthday than I had intended. As I have often stipulated for anyone willing to listen, the date of my birth falls on the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. To be more precise, it occurs on the summer solstice, meaning that there are more hours of sunlight on this occasion than any other. It used to be important for me to rise as early as I could in order to take advantage of all that light. Now I find that finding a reason to stay tucked in my bed is the best gift I can give myself other than good dental hygiene. 

Last week I was able to get a little more rest because I was successful in my stubborn practice of ignoring my cat's insistence that he be fed as the sun begins to rise. His "polite" prodding with that one claw was not what brought me to consciousness. 

Instead, I was fleeing a dream. I wanted to be awake because I didn't want to be in the place where my amygdala was sending me: the lobby of an Arby's. All the lights had gone out. It was understood that these were the final moments before the nuclear cataclysm that had been set in motion hours before. I was attempting to make sense of this with the room full of strangers who found themselves in the same predicament. 

There wasn't a lot of panic, just a lot of consolation and various forms of acceptance of the situation. I understood the gravity of the situation when my good friend and mentor, Waldo showed up. The lucid portion of my brain was able to remind me that Waldo had passed on and this was a ghost. His appearance at this time and place was for emphasis. We would all be dead in a matter of seconds. Make peace with your life now. 

Instead of accepting this, I broke free from my REM state and came back to the relative comfort of my bedroom. The cat was on my chest, preparing to poke at me. I realized that I had escaped, but I felt burdened by a dream that I had thought I had given up after the Cold War. Recent events had stirred my Animus and left me to ponder my existence in an unstable world. 

I am not ready to have my life taken away because some former game show host wanted to pretend to be a tough guy. The answer to the question, "How does he sleep at night?" is painfully obvious by the late-night social media ramblings he makes on a regular basis. Maybe if he closed his eyes and turned off his phone he would be the one with the bad dreams. 

Instead of me. 

More Work And Less Play

 I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate Juneteenth this year with my son who had the day off from his job. We went to a baseball game and had dinner at the park. Hot dogs, Crackerjacks, and was introduced to Oakland's new team, The Ballers. While there was plenty of joy for the ballgame, we did keep Pete Buttgieg's words in mind: "Juneteenth calls us to understand the realities of our past, celebrate the resilience and achievements of Black Americans, and align the course of our country toward its founding creed of liberty and justice for all."

This reminder stood in stark contrast from those that issued forth from The White House. The convicted felon chose to mark the occasion on which news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Galveston, Texas, effectively rounding out the decision to end slavery in the recently reunited states by making the following "Truth" social media post: “Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

I suppose I could feel sorry for the amber crumudgeon since people skipped his parade in favor of No Kings and Pride events across this already great land of ours. It must be difficult for him to get a tee time when everyone else has the day off too. He also seems to have an issue with occasions that mark history that he feels isn't especially happy. He wants to rename November 11 from Veteran's Day to "VictoryDay For World War I." It was also his suggestion that we celebrate Victory For World War II on May 8. Except that marks our victory in Europe. The war in the Pacific continued until August 14. Just a few days after the United States dropped the second of the only two atomic weapons used in war on Japan. 

But that's kind of a bummer and we wouldn't want to be selling mushroom cloud funnel cakes at parades and wearing radiation badges to promote the idea of our superiority. That would be a downer. In reality, the man who has never worked a real job in his life nor served in any military capacity beyond staring at squeaky tanks as they rolled past him and twelve other people would rather that the joy experienced by the release from bondage be kept to ourselves while we go back to figuring out how we are going to pay for our eggs while we prepare for his next clever idea about going to war in the Middle East. 

Yay. 

Tired Of It

 Jaden Watts has been taken into custody. This will come as a relief to residents in Wichita, Kansas who were had spent months looking for the eighteen year old. Not because he had run away from home, exactly. Not because he was thought to be part of some sort of human trafficking scheme. Young Jaden was apprehended. Not rescued. He was picked up for his participation in the shooting of twenty-four year old Demarc Burgess. 

If you're not keeping tabs on the Wichita police blotter, the death of young Mister Burgess may have missed your notice. It was less than a year ago that Demarc had accepted a plea deal for his part in a fatal shooting of twenty-eight year old Raul Aguilar. Raul and Demarc were initially involved in a fight at a "gathering" that escalated quickly into gunfire. Mister Burgess survived. Aguilar did not. Demarc was initially charged with Second-Degree Murder & Battery, Demarc pled guilty to one count of Aggravated Assault and one count of Aggravated Battery. Raul did not get a chance to argue his side of the case. Because he was dead.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Demarc read very similar to those that resulted in Raul's death. Jaden Watts was able to evade authorities for nearly four months after a disturbance at another home in Wichita brought police to the scene where Mister Burgess was found with multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. Mister Watts has been charged with second degree murder. Bond for young Jaden has been set at one million dollars.

I bring this case up because of the way it follows such a tired and familiar path. The thread of violence is nothing new. Guns keep unraveling young lives and the story seems to be endless. New young men. Different guns. Same results. Wichita is one city in the United States. The United States is one of only three countries in the world with a constitutional right to own guns.

I apologize for the writing of that last paragraph. The last sentence is supposed to be a conclusion. I think it is, but you'll have to forgive the abruptness of it.

I'm tired.

The Stakes Are Rising

 The assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman is yet another signpost on the path of current events that points to something awful. Terrible. Horrible. Hortman and her husband were gunned down early last Saturday morning by a man posing as a policeman. This same madman had stopped at three other lawmakers' homes, shooting another legislator and his wife, John Hoffman and his wife who are both expected to survive their wounds. 

Into this mix we drop United States Senator Mike Lee, who thought he might take this opportunity to throw a little social media gasoline on the fire. Senator Mike from Utah posted a couple of different bits of what I can only assume he believed were "funny," using a picture of the assassin taken from security video and captioning one “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.” The other one referenced Minnesota Governor Mike Walz, “Nightmare on Waltz Street.” Senator Mike was acting on some initial impulse that had him suggesting that the killer was from the Left, and misspelling the governor's name in the second. Several days later, after being confronted by Minnesota's senator Tina Smith who was a friend of Melissa Hortman, did Lee delete his posts. 

Once again, we see just how wide and unhealthy the divide has grown between the Left and the Right. The killer, who was apprehended in a cornfield not far from his house, was working from a list left in his pretend police car of seventy other names of potential victims. Democrats. In another version of this story, things could have been much worse. 

Which brings me to the point: How much darker do things need to be before we turn ourselves back toward the light? The convicted felon who was probably still reveling in the birthday parade he sat through chose not to call Governor Walz, as protocol might suggest in times like these. "Why would I call him? I could call and say, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So I could be nice and call, but why waste time?" 

I am good at recognizing rhetorical questions, but I think this bears an answer: Because you are the leader of a country called the United States. In times of crisis, we reach out to remind ourselves that as difficult as things get we are all in this together. Like when somebody was shooting at the Republican candidate for President a year ago. Joe Biden called his political adversary to check on his welfare and later addressed the nation, reminding us, We're neighbors or friends, coworkers, citizens. Most importantly, we are fellow Americans, we must stand together.”

That feels like a hundred years ago now. Time flies when you're living in a hate-fueled vortex. 

Dragging Our Feet

 I spent three years in a paramilitary organization where I learned to walk in step with the people next to me. It wasn't difficult. It was surrendering to a very natural impulse. With the tiniest bit of onboard rhythm, you can get a group of humans to march around in step with one another. This is what my experience in high school band taught me. 

What I witnessed in recorded bits of the practice parade the convicted felon threw for himself suggested that we he invited only the least practiced military units we have or that perhaps our men and women in uniform have begun to grow tired of the chicanery the bloviator in chief continues to pass off as governance. Experience suggests that it is difficult to walk out of step with even one other walker with any exposure to the left-right-left drill. My wife and I are both high school band veterans and sometimes try to avoid this conformity just to keep our level of obedience to social norms at bay. I can report that this is not worth the effort. 

So why would hundreds of America's armed forces show up on a Saturday to meander in front of a dictator who can't even get the stands filled? Perhaps for the same reason that you and I might flinch about having to go to work on a Saturday. Because the boss made you. You'll probably show up, but you won't work that hard. There might even be just a little veiled antipathy in the music choices if he let you use the stereo in the break room. This might explain why John Fogerty's song, "Fortunate Son," was played not once but multiple times over the shambling proceedings. 

And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"

Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him march in step with the other horses. Or get him to wear a red baseball cap. Or listen to Lee Greenwood or the Village People. And if you drag a bunch of men and women who have sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and tell them to march around in front a twice-impeached adjudicated rapist who uses the Bill of Rights like a menu at Denny's, always asking for substitutions even though the waitress explains that they are not available. It's not the military that needs to get in step. It's the former game show host who has made a point of belittling those who have sacrificed for their country who needs to get in line. 

Or get out. 

Smile

 Maybe you were hoping that I would mention Brian Wilson. The passing of the head Beach Boy last week was, sadly, caught up in a wave of other news that fought for my attention. Just so you all understand, Mister Wilson's death did not go unnoticed by me. 

Coming so fast on the heels of Sly Stone going to the great gig in the sky, I was unprepared to deal with a remembrance of yet another music legend. It was reminiscent of the ten month period when we lost David Bowie, Prince and Tom Petty. But over the course of two days to lose all that psychedelic funk and the godfather of surf music? While the world seems intent on blowing itself up? 

I needed some time to digest. 

Brian Wilson was the troubled genius behind America's response to the British Invasion. While not as outwardly artistic as the Beatles, the Beach Boys' songs held their own on the charts and in the studio. Listening to Good Vibrations is a good time, but its construction was every bit as complex as anything on Sergeant Pepper. It was the follow-up to the Pet Sounds album, Smile, that was Brian's undoing. It was during this period that stories of Brian Wilson sleeping for days, then heading down to the piano he kept in a sandbox to try and come up with new music became the legend that overwhelmed the man. Drop into this mix the pressure and drugs and the evil Doctor Landy and you discover that the meal ticket that so many required Brian to be was unsustainable. 

Not unlike Sly Stone, the music that might have been made by Brian Wilson was snuffed out of existence by excess. 

Which doesn't mean we can't revel in what was. The harmonies and army of studio musicians who came together to bring that breezy California sound to us all was nothing short of revolutionary. Meanwhile that same crew was busy making music for the Monkees and just about anyone else who needed a hit. 

But it was Brian Wilson who found a sound like no one else, no matter who was playing the music. Before he went to bed for two years, he stomped on the Terra of the recording industry. He provided us with endless summers in addition to all those good vibrations. He will be missed.

Aloha, Brian. 

For What It's Worth

 I am a cynic. 

No news here. I am simply stating a fact. While I purport to be creating hope and change, I am still turning over rocks to look at what crawls beneath. 

Which probably explains the reaction I had to participating in the No Kings protests this past Saturday. I was initially quite ambivalent about going out to stand on a street corner with signs (hooray for our side) for a couple of hours to try and bring about regime change. Then I was encouraged by my wife who is much more sincere than I will ever be to create "a sign or two" for her mother and her to share with the masses. This was an opportunity that seemed much easier and fun to fulfill. 

I brought out our big markers and commenced to draw with a mild fury. Soon I was on my fourth poster and realized that I had made enough signage for my wife's aunt and uncle to parade about with artwork I had provided. With one left over. My wife had her own design prepared, so I had unwittingly opened the door to be one of the few, the proud, the placard bearers. 

So Saturday morning we went out to join the "old folks" version of civil unrest. When we arrived, hundreds were already lining the street on both sides, waving their own pointed message to the "man who would be king." Drivers honked their horns. Ambulance drivers and fire trucks flashed their lights and blew their sirens in support. We found a spot along the curb and set up shop. 

We were a like-minded group. It was not hard to set up a conversation. So many voices were raised in anger and frustration with the Second Trumpreich. A good deal of time was spent admiring the creative sentiments shared on our homemade protest projects. I got to take a bow for my efforts, and moved through the crowd with my wife, creating a "tank parade" of our own. 

Then, around lunchtime, the party broke up. We carried ourselves and our signs back to the parking lot, and drove home filled with the sense of accimplishment that comes from standing on a street corner. 

As you can see, the bloom was already fading from my protest rose. By the time I went to bed that night, I was feeling something larger than simple chagrin. The forty-five million dollar celebration the convicted felon had thrown for the sole purpose of salving his gargantuan ego had taken place on the other side of the country. Two Minnesota lawmakers had been shot in their homes. And the unconscionable immigration raids continued to the south of us where demonstrators encountered tear gas and pepper spray once again. In Los Angeles they were fighting the fight. They weren't just admiring one another's signs. 

Still, for what it's worth, I hope that somehow somewhere the message we sent resonated in a way that might stir others to action. Elected representatives. People who had closed their eyes for the past ten years believing that America was really going to be Great Again after his truculence was finished with it. Somewhere, embedded in the midst of all that cynicism was a kernel of hope. A diamond in the rough. 

Ironical

 Meanwhile in Hamilton County: "We welcome people of diverse backgrounds, thoughts, and experiences,, And in a twist of irony, it is our country's legal framework protecting diversity of views that allows these hateful neo-Nazis to have a presence."

Those were the words of Prosecutor Connie Pillich, announcing that no charges would be filed against a group of neo-Nazis who took over an overpass on Interstate 75 in Ohio. For the rest of this report, I will be dropping the "neo" portion of that descriptor since a Nazi by any other name would smell as bad. Swastikas and hate-filled banners are pretty much your give-away. 

The "protest" took place back in February of this year, and over the past several months a team of prosecutors tried to put a case together reviewing several possible charges, including disorderly conduct, ethnic intimidation, inducing panic and being a Nazi. I tossed that last one in myself, knowing that being a Nazi is still completely legal here in the United States, even though we already beat them in a war. 

Maybe Ms. Pillich and her team should have considered my made up infraction since after all those months they were unable to find a way to legally discourage these displays of hate. The Nazis were protected by their First Amendment rights. And their Second Amendment rights as well, since many of the Nazis were carrying weapons. 

I suppose that's where the irony Ms. Pillich spoke of comes from. Would that the same careful adherence to our Constitution was being observed in Southern California. In Los Angeles the police are shooting at reporters. As arrests and detainment pile up in the City of Angels, you can bet that no charges will be filed against the police. Even after months of "careful consideration." 

Stay tuned. 

Wuffwy, Centurion

 “Oh and uh.. Throw him to the floor, sir?”

“What?”

“Throw him to the floor again, sir?”

“Oh yes. Frow him to the flaw, please.”

“ACK!!”

Depending on the settings of your blasphometer, this bit from Monty Python's Life of Brian might leave you in stitches, or it could send you in search of the unholy troupe who wrote it in the first place to give them stitches. I find it amusing. 

What I didn't find funny was the way this same scene played out in real life this past week in Los Angeles. Senator Alex Padilla was "frone to the flaw" by three federal officers after he attempted to ask Kristi "puppy killer" Noem a few questions about the ongoing situation in the City of Angels. The Trumpreich immediately went into denial, claiming that the Senator "lunged" at the killer of puppies and failed to identify himself. Video of the incident tells a different story.

Surprise, surprise. 

To be clear: Alex Padilla is a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety. He was at this press conference as part of his business. Official business. He was there to ask just what was going on in Southern California. On behalf of the citizens he was elected to represent. 

Nobody elected the puppy killer. As a matter of fact, up until the puppy killing revelation in the spring of 2024, there were those who felt that she might be a good running mate for a convicted felon. At least that's what the puppy killer herself believed. Instead, he went with the couch molester, but she got picked to be Secretary of Homeland Security. 

Currently there is no ongoing puppy crisis in Los Angeles that requires her attention. Just the wanton and reckless disruption of everyday life by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, rolling out in unmarked cars with masks on. The good people of Los Angeles were upset. 

So they took to the streets. That's when the puppy killer's boss illegally sent California National Guard troops in to "bring peace" to those streets. Along with seven hundred U.S. Marines. 

If you're a fan of "Life of Brian," you may find this an amusing solution, given the way Romans "brought peace" to Judea back in 33 AD. 

Except this is how things are really being handled in real time right now. Kristi and her stormtroopers are bringing peace the same way she brought it to her farm way back when: at the end of the barrel of a gun. 

My Father Who Art In Heaven

 The subject of Fathers Day is sometimes fraught with uncertainty. Not knowing or not connecting with half of your parental unit is a source of trepidation I carry with me from my earliest days as a teacher. "What would your father say?" is a question I have found that can sometimes lead to a different kind of revelation than was intended. 

Everyone has a father. Not everyone has the chance to experience that relationship to its fullest. In that regard, I consider myself very fortunate. I had a chance to get last tag on my father. I had moved out and was on my own and even had a chance to borrow a pair of pants from my old man on my wedding day when the ones I was supposed to wear got left down in town. 

I got married in the meadow below the cabin that I helped him build. The meadow where we played softball in the summers and where a drunken brawl of a volleyball game took place once a year at our family reunion. The pine tree hills surrounding that meadow is where I spent a lot of time dragging fallen timber back to that cabin in the woods where it could be sawed and chopped into fuel to keep ourselves warm and provide heat for cooking on the wood stove. My father ran a Wright reciprocating saw that he kept running night and day on the weekends. This is how he got his nickname: Beaver. 

He didn't have a lot of other pet names. "Dad" was good enough for him. Good enough for my brothers and I to call him that with the periodic needling we might give him by calling by his "real name." He was Donald long before there was another to worry about. He made such an impression that when it was time to go looking for a name for my son, it was already road tested. It was my hope that I would be passing along all those amazing and amusing things that came with that label.

Not the frailties and infidelities that hung around the edges. 

I am older now than my father ever was, and I am not foolish enough to know that for all the adoration I may have poured out in his honor, my father made some awful choices. He was a great dad, and one of the best storytellers I will ever know. He was not always the best husband. He struggled with a past that left him without a father figure of his own so he spent the later years of his life searching for the man he wanted to be. He didn't realize that he had spent his life becoming just that. His wife and children were left with that puzzle. The wreckage he left behind was not inconsiderable, but disrupted the American Dream we all felt we were living. 

I have had some years to forget and forgive. The family he helped build is still mighty and intact, and my wish of raising a namesake for him has worked out rather well. 

I knew my father. And I miss him today. 

Coming Attractions

 On a visit to our local cinema recently, I was reminded of the excitement generated by the trailers that are shown before the feature. It's a part of the movie-going experience that never gets old to me. My wife and I look at one another after each two minute reel unfolds in front of us, and we make secret agreements to return to the theater, "Ooo. I want to see that." Or occasionally, "I can skip that one." In many ways these introductory moments provide an agenda for the coming months. What sort of entertainment awaits us?

In the past I have had a similar feeling when summer approaches. Anticipating all the stops on my June calendar provide me with things for which I can look forward: The release from the daily grind of school. My sister-in-law's birthday. Father's Day. My own birthday. And thanks to a good friend's penchant for the arcane, Flag Day. 

Yes, June 14 sits on my schedule of events as the anticipatory week before the day of my birth and a reminder that we as a nation have a symbol in common. Celebrating is as simple as putting the flag out and then remembering to bring it back in at sunset. No big barbecues or need to invite friends over. Just a quiet celebration of our nation without all those fireworks in just a few weeks. 

And now that's spoiled because one of the planet's biggest egos requires that his birthday becomes some monstrous fete with marching troops and rolling tanks. Picture the streets of North Korea or Russia when their dictators demand a show of military might, but without a trace of irony on the Orange Clown's part. Not satisfied with sending three thousand troops into Los Angeles to pick a fight with peaceful protestors after the police department there had done a fine job of misusing their authority, the convicted felon now demands that his troops perform for him in a very public celebration of his declining years. 

A celebration fit for a king. 

As with the summer of 2020 as millions died from a pandemic the adjudicated rapist saw fit to ignore and the country rose up to remind us all that Black Lives Matter, the fool in the White House seems more than content to let our cities become immersed in conflict and struggle. The plans I had for a quiet, relaxing summer are gone. All those celebrations I had anticipated will be put to the side. 

It's time to fight the power. 

As Spike Lee reminded us, "Do the right thing." That's not a coming attraction, necessarily. It's more of a revival. 

Solace

  It's small solace I take from the words of California's governor, Gavin Newsom. 

But in this particular wave of awful, I will take solace in even the tiniest bites. 

This past Sunday, Newsom responded to the unprecedented act of the twice-impeached convicted felon federalizing his state's National Guard and sending them into Los Angeles. “Donald Trump has created the conditions you see on your TV tonight. He’s exacerbated the conditions. He’s, you know, lit the proverbial match. He’s putting fuel on this fire, ever since he announced he was taking over the National Guard — an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.”

A nice start, but then it snowballed. Later in the same interview, Newsom was asked about border czar Tom Homan’s comments indicating he would not rule out arresting Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass if they interfered in his efforts.“Come after me, arrest me. Let’s just get it over with, tough guy, you know? I don’t give a damn. But I care about my community. I care about this community." He ended with, “The hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up. They need to stop and we need to push back. And I’m sorry to be so clear, but that kind of bloviating is exhausting. So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”

It is perhaps worth noting that California has in its recent history a movie star governor who made his living prior to his political career by making tough guy statements in Hollywood. He took this act on the road to Vienna last week where he told environmentalists to "stop whining" about climate change and do something about it. 

The protests in Los Angeles were deemed unlawful by the Trumpreich and dozens were arrested. By masked "police."

But not Gavin Newsom. 

Climate Change was deemed a hoax by the Trumpreich and its only a matter of time before the Project 2025 gang has those activists arrested. 

But not Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

This is the sliver of solace I will carry with me while things go from bad to worse to unrecognizable.