For Whom The Bell Tolls

 Read the room. That's all I'm asking. 

I have listened to complaints from my young charges during PE classes that I have taught. Somewhere around the half hour mark, no matter how much fun they are having, the cries for a water break go up. I am aware that water and bathroom breaks are a form of currency in elementary school. At some point during any period of instruction, inside or out, there will come a need to flee the oppressive burden of being told what to do. I am sensitive to the physical needs of the boys and girls under my tutelage, but I am also aware that they are all well-equipped to race around for longer periods if they are enjoying the "free play" of recess. There will be a water break for everyone at the end of class. 

"But Mister Caven, I'm dying!"

"We are all dying, just very slowly," has been my answer to some of the more pitiful wretches who complain the most bitterly about my water policy. 

I understand that this response is lost on a nine year old. I know that it is not the answer that they want to hear. I am also clear that I am doing a better job holding my decorum than Iowa's senator, Joni Ernst. 

Last Friday Senator Joni hosted a town hall for her constituents, many of whom had concerns about cuts to Medicaid in that "Big Beautiful Bill" her party wants to foist on the country in the guise of saving money. One of them insisted that people would die as a result of her party’s health care cuts, at which point Senator Joni replied, “Well, we all are going to die.” 

I am not outraged that she stole my bit. I am outraged because I make sure that after ten to fifteen minutes of histrionics from a third grader, I march them all into the hallway out of the sun to the water fountain. For her part, Senator Joni "apologized" to her fellow Iowans. In a video filmed while strolling through a cemetery, she said she “made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth," and finished up with, “So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Mister Caven is a heartless tyrant at times, but eventually he surrenders to his constituent's concerns. Senator Ernst? Not so much. 

Another Mobile Home Broken Up

 And everyone said it wouldn't last. 

And everyone was right. 

The money-driven lust for power relationship that spawned the love child DOGE hit the rocks on June 5, 2025, less than a year after it went public. 

Do you remember when it all began? The world's richest man started to tweet about his admiration for the former game show host as the campaign of 2024 began to reach a boiling point. You may remember the crazed gunman who took a shot at the twice-impeached felon on the campaign trail. It was sometime around then that Elongated Mush went public with his rediscovered admiration for the man who, back in 2016, he said "I feel a bit stronger that he is not the right guy. He doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States."

We all know how time heals all wounds, and the prospect of acquiring more wealth and power can also make political bedfellows that might otherwise seem to make no sense. These two oddfellows consolidated their grab for power after it became apparent that they both had something to gain: A Second Trumpreich offered Mush a way to revisit his youth in the shape of a new apartheid. The adjudicated rapist who was attempting to become the first convicted felon to be elected President of the United States saw star power in Mushie that outshone Kid Rock, so he accepted Mush's check for nearly three hundred million dollars and went back to praising "the late great Hannibal Lecter." 

After the Dear Orange Leader was elected in November, Elongated Mush could not contain himself. He let fly with not one but two sieg-heils from the podium at a rally celebrating the victory. He told rally goers, "It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured." 

With that kind of endorsement, and a great big checkbook, who wouldn't invite a guy like that home? 

But it all went south once things got real in the wake of popular opinion. As it turned out, no one really wanted to see what these two had in store for the future of our civilization. Not even those nifty electric cars that the Mar-A-Lago's golf champ wanted to sell from the lawn of the White House, or the tariffs that fluxuated in size and importance with each passing day. 

Things got more and more tempestuous even as Elongated Mush was handed the made-up tribute of a golden key upon his retreat from Washington. It was only a few days after that tender moment that Mushie went full public with his feelings about the "Big Beautiful Bill," which he felt would add to the deficit that his DOGE-y crew had worked so hard and comically to deflate. 

Which didn't seem to slow the White House insistence that nothing could be farther from the truth. So Mister Mush decided to go low by tweeting the not-so-veiled accusation of Dear Leader's connection to the Epstein files: “That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a good day, DJT!”

In a battle between egos that can only be housed in Olympic-sized stadiums, this will most likely take a monstrous effort to control the casualties. But, since they're both monsters in their own right, I can only expect the appearance of Godzilla himself will calm the devastation that lies at the end of each news cycle. 

Then again, when the revelations turn out to be simply that which confirms the aberrant behavior of either one of these nimrods, I declare Situation Normal...

End Of List

 I find myself turning once again to that quote from comedian Denis Leary: “Racism isn’t born, folks. It’s taught. I have a 2-year-old son. Know what he hates? Naps. End of list.” That little truth bomb comes to us through the haze from 1992. 

It was true in 1962.

And 1892.

And 1692. 

I could go on.

But you would hate that. And don't we have enough of that just now. 

Jonathan Joss, voice actor and periodic guest star on Parks and Recreation, was shot and killed over the weekend. As I have stated here before, no one deserves to be shot and killed. If Mister Joss was murdered because of his Native American ancestry, that would have been unacceptable. If he had been killed because he was an openly gay man as his husband and witness to the shooting insists, that would have been just as intolerable. 

If Jonathan Joss had been shot over a parking space, that would simply fall into the same category of people who were victims of hate crimes. Killing someone requires a lot of hate, and we are currently wading through not just a wave but high tide of hostility toward one another. 

I teach the kids at my school that hate is a nadir, the bottom rung of the ladder. It means that there is nothing lower than the school lunch for which they have just turned up their collective nose. By contrast, they help me realize that the same kid they could not stand to sit next to in class will most likely be the one they insist on lining up next to when it is time to go to lunch. The lunch they can agree on. That awful barbecue chicken leg. 

No one is being shot over the limited choices in our cafeteria. 

Not yet anyway. 

I hope this tide starts to recede soon. I hate it. 

Drawn Out

 I had not drawn in the sketchbook my wife gave me for several months. That changed on the afternoon of June 1. 

This past Saturday, a man threw Molotov Cocktails, flaming bottles of gasoline, at a group of demonstrators. Not in Ukraine. Or Gaza. Or any one of a thousand different places where such an act would be news. This act of terrorism took place here in these United States, a term that becomes increasingly ironic with each passing day. 

 Mohamed Sabry Soliman, yelled “Free Palestine” as he set six elderly participants in a group called "Run For Your Lives" on fire. In Boulder, Colorado. In front of the old courthouse on the Pearl Street Mall. The victims were rushed to area hospitals with moderate to severe injuries. I was left in front of my computer with little else to do but doom scroll for updates on the tragedy. 

In my mind I was hurled back to March of 2021 when ten people were shot and killed inside a grocery store. In Boulder, Colorado. The fourth anniversary of that bloodbath had only recently been observed when my hometown became headline news once again. I understand how completely narrow-minded this worldview is, but I find it difficult not to flinch harder at events that ring tragic in the place that I call home. This is not the light I want shone on the place where I grew up. 

I sat at my desk, having refreshed the images and descriptions far too many times, and I started drawing. Not the round, amusing cartoons that so often fill the pages of my imagination, but jagged sketches of monsters. Demons that were pressing against my mind's eye that I felt needed to be released. Would I have felt moved to scribble these images if the news had pointed me in a different direction? In New York City? In London? In the Gaza Strip? 

Thirty-one people were killed as they lined up for aid distribution just south of Rafah this past Sunday. This mass casualty event did not inspire the same reaction in my brain that the burns of half a dozen Americans, Coloradans, Boulderites did. Somehow things that happen, no matter how awful, a world away do not inspire me to generate monsters inside my head. 

My wife had returned just a week ago from visiting our hometown. On her trip, she stopped by the Pearl Street Mall, taking in the nostalgic view of the Art Deco inspired courthouse. My wife was not in Rafah over the past few weeks. We did not grow up knowing the horrors of war. 

I suppose we had better get used to it. I'll save a few more pages for the next terror attack. 

Stink

 That smell you may be experiencing could be smoke from wildfires up north in the new frontier we used to call "Canada." 

It might also be the refuse left over from Elongated Mush's five month stay in Washington, DC. 

I leave it to you to decide how those two are related, but I will be focusing on the latter, since we all know that "Canada" has always been famous for its wildfires and it certainly has nothing to do with climate change.

Or Elongated Mush. The man whose portable methane powered turbine generators have been powering his supercomputer in Memphis for months now. The massive machine he lovingly calls "Colossus." without a hint of irony. Not everyone gets irony. Or sarcasm. 

So I will attempt to make this as clear as possible: Transhpobic racists who abuse drugs should stick to blowing up rockets rather than muck about in our government. The Mushmaster said, upon his departure from DC that he was surprised to find, "The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” his whine continued. “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything.” Not only that, “People were burning Teslas. Why would you do that? That’s really uncool.”

So is the appropriation of citizen's private data. So is cutting off food aid to the most vulnerable populations in the world. So is firing national park rangers. 

Of course, when did Elongated Mush become the arbiter of "cool?" 

History will show that really rich fascists tend not to succeed in government. Mush bought himself just enough time and influence to go back to his crumbling empire where his drones will prop him back up and restore his sense of invulnerability. 

And maybe bring some air freshener to mask the stink? 

What?

 I was this many years old when it finally came clear to me that the lyrics to "The Ballad Of Gilligan's Isle" includes the line "it started from this tropic port," and not (as I had been singing and recalling for all those years prior "it started from this traffic port." The confusion stemmed from my far-too-clever mind at an impressionable age and choice I made to hear "traffic" instead of "tropic" because I assumed that there was a nautical distinction for busy ports where three hour cruises could be chartered. I made the sense I was going to make of it some sixty years ago and it was only this past week that stumbling across the phrase "traffic stop" in a completely non-Gilligan-related podcast that a light wen on in my head: "Tropic port" makes so much more sense. My prior belief that Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle were trying to goose the seafaring knowledge of the viewing public by including some naval jargon was crushed beneath the reality of a misheard lyric. 

I have had my struggles with this sort of thing at other points in my life. A very good friend of mine insists that the Vapors are singing "cyclone ranger" and not (as the lyrics sheet included with the album suggest) "psyched lone ranger." Friendly as these discussions begin, there seems to a point at which surrendering to the "truth" takes a back seat to the synapses that had been knocked into place in some formative time and place. 

If you have spent years, nay decades, singing along tunefully to the words you believed were those stated by the artist and it turns out that they are not the words stated by the artist, you have a choice: go with what you know in your heart or surrender to the reality of what is on that piece of paper that comes along with the album. 

Which brings us to the question: What is an album? 

Or a lyric sheet? 

And who is still aware of Gilligan's Island anymore? 

I started to wonder about the topographical features of the island itself and if someone had bothered to create a map from the periodic ancillary references to its geography. I became concerned that those seven stranded castaways might not be getting enough protein amid their seemingly banana and coconut-based diet. Why did the Howells seem to have brought enough cash in addition to wardrobe changes for months at sea, not three hours? Was there ever a moment that things got particularly desperate and the rest of them didn't have the urge to take out their frustrations on Gilligan fouling up yet another rescue attempt by requiring the ultimate sacrifice? 

It all started from that traffic port...

Taco Tuesday Will Now Be Every Day

 I think of Marty McFly, and the way he used to light up when somebody called him "chicken." Not the healthiest response from our boy Marty, but he was (according to the movie timeline) seventeen years old. Or forty-four. Or seventy-seven. It depends on the reality in which his DeLorean lands. The actor who portrayed Marty, Michael J Fox, is the same age as I am. I want to believe that he has learned through his experiences on the screen and in his real-life struggle with Parkinson's Disease how to cope face the world with a brave face regardless of the challenge. 

There might be some comfort in knowing that our current situation with Pennywise the President was brought about by someone mucking with the timeline. The former gameshow host seems like the kind of guy who would fall for a stainless steel lemon that could be modified into a time machine. It might explain how we got into the mess in which we currently exist. Only this time it was Biff Tannen who kept the Sports Almanac and made a bunch of deals that generated the warped space that we are navigating. 

One telling difference here: The Biff currently taking up space at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the one with the "chicken issue." In case you missed it, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist slumlord does not like being called "chicken." The phrase used first by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong, "Trump Always Chickens Out" refers to the twice-impeached White House resident and his stop, step back, jump, turn, hop and skip away from threats he has made about tariffs. One hundred fifty percent to ninety to pause to fifty to only things we don't buy anyway. He calls it "negotiation." Those of us watching call it "chicken."

Of course it's not just Marty McFly who historically had trouble with this epithet. Once a very long time ago a young man named Jim Stark struggled with this epithet. In the movie, Jim avoids going over the cliff, but the James who played him wasn't so lucky. A tragedy to be sure, but at the time James Dean crashed his car he was not in charge of the United States economy. And the third biggest army in the world. And the nuclear codes. 

With those factors in mind, I guess we can only hope that TACO is an acronym that sticks. 

Commuted

Last Thursday I rode my bike to school.

No big deal. I've done it a lot of times.

Most of the time that I have been teaching, this year and all the years before. 

But it was the Last Day of School for kids at Horace Mann that I stumbled on the phrase: Rush Hour. What does that mean to me? 

I know it takes me about twelve minutes to get to work from my house. It takes about fifteen minutes to get home. I take advantage of the slope on my way there, and it works against me on the way home. The elements sometimes play a part in that as well, but my commute has been blessedly straightforward for more than a quarter century. 

On those rare occasions that I get to ride in a car there is the tiniest bit of traffic with which we must contend. Parking isn't usually a hassle of any significance because there is plenty of bare curb to be found when I roll up. And more often than not, if I am in a car, I will be exiting the vehicle so my wife can be on her way to whatever adventures await her. 

While I go to work. 

I got my perfect attendance award last week. I was on time and in my place each and every day this school year. I got there early so that I could have a few quiet moments before the gates open and the stream of children signal the start of my work day. 

I'm the guy who opens that gate. Which does give me pause. I wonder if I didn't show up on time one day if there might be a mad scramble to figure out how to get all those little people into the building if I weren't there. 

But now it's June, and these questions can go unanswered for the time being. This all too brief pause in the story of Mister Caven and his commute. Starting with day one.