Meditation

 When I grew up, I played with guns. 

Toy guns. Plastic replicas of all the weapons I watched the good guys shoot on movie and TV screens. 

At this time, there were the faint rumblings of what would eventually become a torrent of screams about violence on television and on film. There was concern being raised that having the Vietnam War piped into our living rooms on a daily basis with accompanying body counts and the sounds of helicopters and machine gun fire could have an affect on the young minds of a country trying to find its way out of a seemingly endless conflict in Southeast Asia. 

Somewhere in there, the war ended, as did the compulsory military draft for young men in the United States. Not surpsingly, right about this same time Hasbro Toy Company shifted their focus on GI Joes being war heroes to being Action Team heroes. They were no longer taking up arms against foreign nations, suddenly they were rescuing one another from giant rubber snakes and floating down the Amazon in tiny inflatable rafts. Another very noticeable change: these dolls, pardon me, action figures were no longer clean shaven. They came with a full head of hair, beard and mustache and their hands were no longer forever molded into a cupped left for supporting a rifle barrel and a pointed right finger for resting on a trigger. These little fellas came with Kung Fu grip, all the better for hand to hand combat with the aforementioned giant rubber snake. 

I grew up in the middle of this new wave of thinking, and though I was already too old by just a couple of years I can remember the appearance of the Joey Stivic doll. This was the first anatomically correct male baby doll mass marketed to a new generation of girls and boys to help them grapple with their nurturing side. I never owned one, but I can remember having impassioned discussions around our dinner table about why the likeness of Archie Bunker's grandson, the son of All In The Family's Meathad Michael Stivic, was a toy that should be honored and delivered to a new generation of more sensitive kids. 

Ours was quite the liberal household. This did not keep me from building model planes and ships used in war, nor did it keep me from growing up and having a very similar discussion with my wife about the guns we might allow our son to play with as he began to discover what his preschool teacher referred to as "power extenders." I felt trapped in a world that didn't want to force my son to play with dolls or to forbid him to play with guns. Guns that shot water. Or foam rubber darts. I wanted to have that elusive quality called "an open mind." 

I also wanted him to have "life-like hair" and Kung Fu grip. His room was full of Legos and action figures of all manner of super heroes. And a very substantial armory of Nerf weapons. The mock battles he simulated with his friends were not against foreign invaders but of armies of the living dead. He and his buddies created what they believed was their Zombie Apocalypse Plan. Even as a war raged on in the Middle East, he was less concerned about regime change than he was with having his brains eaten. 

There are still toy guns out there. I flinch every time I see a student of mine point his finger at one of his classmates and makes a slobbery sound like an AK-47. I try and dissuade them from killing one another, even in play, but I know that it's hardwired. They live in a world with unimaginable firepower generated via videogames. Their virtual world is far better armed than ours was running around the woods with sticks for rifles. These are the future drone operators for the next big invasion. 

I'm not sure if Kung Fu grip will make it easier to handle the controls. 

Stolen Moments

My brothers and I used to lie to my mother about how much we practiced the piano. The three of us teamed up in this subterfuge as we attempted to pull one over on mom. Hindsight suggests that the only ones we were cheating were ourselves. "Oh yes. I practiced for more than fifteen minutes. And Dan did his fifteen minutes. And Doug? I'm pretty sure he did almost half an hour." It did not occur to us that my parents were paying for the lessons we were taking, and our lack of progress would do nothing but sandbag that investment. 

I grew up with a piano in our living room. It was my mother's and having grown up with her own practice regimen she was able to play all manner of complex classical pieces. Meanwhile, her three sons spent their time plinking away at finger exercises and scales. These were building blocks that would eventually deliver the kind of seemingly effortless flourishes my mother performed. This was a path that may have been understood at some level by us boys, but the wealth of things that we would rather do than sit on that piano bench and do our due diligence. Not the least of these was in fact the least of these: doing nothing. Then shortly before mom was expected home, we would gather to renew of agreements and clarify the details. We understood that the youngest would probably be the weak link, with a propensity for telling the truth. All it would take was one little slip, and our whole story would fall apart. 

Decades later I find myself wishing that I would have afforded myself more of a chance to learn more piano. My Mother's piano now sits in my front room. Nobody is watching over me. I could take any of the spare moments and sit down to refresh those muscle memories from all those E-Z piano selections I memorized way back when. I know the keys. I know the scales. I appreciate that the only thing that is keeping me from playing just as wonderfully as my mother did for all those years is the guy not sitting in front of the keyboard. 

That guy who used to lie to his mom about how much he practiced. I would like to have some of those days of nothing back. 

Links

 “If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

There's your policy statement issued from the Southern White House/Golf Resort by the guy who spent the past ten days out on the links. Apparently word came to him somewhere between rounds of cheating at golf that Iran might be shotting or violently killing protesters. Which does bear some unpacking since the so-called-"president" of the United States is issuing fatwas from his golf cart without bothering to conjugate verbs or consider the fact that pretty much all the killing of peaceful protesters falls under the "violent" category. 

Then there's the matter of peaceful protest in his own country. It was over this same holiday week that “We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities, and ONLY by that fact.” Not constricted by a character count on his own social media platform, the twice-impeached golf pro finished up his rant with, "We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!" 

What he fails to mention here is that he was forced to do this by the same Supreme Court that had once seemed to be rubber-stamping the fascist takeover of our cities. Perhaps the empty-headed threats being tossed around by the guy trying to get us all to ignore his increasingly obvious appearance in the Trumpstein Files is now standard operating procedure in what's left of the White House. 

And, quite possibly, policy decisions that involve the safety of the rest of the world should not be made between rounds of golf. 

This Episode

 Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were scooped up by "U.S. Law Enforcement" early Saturday morning and whisked away to an undisclosed location. Attorney General Pam "My Word Is My" Bondi insists that the couple will “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

As the preamble to every installment of the ancient sitcom used to say, "Confused? You will be after this episode of Soap."

Expcept this isn't a sitcom. This is the very frightening state of United States foreign policy in 2026. Up until now, the goons have been content to attempt to kidnap foreigners in our country they suspect may have broken a law and send them to some other country. Now this has evolved into going to some other country to find foreigners who they think have broken some law and bringing them back to our country. Couple this with the complete absence of due process and respect for the institutions put in place by our Consitution, and you've got a mass of bad decisions made by a gang that can't shoot straight. 

In case we have all forgotten what this same crew that oh-so-very recently pardoned the former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, releasing him back into the world after spending two years of a forty-five year sentence for (no need to check notes here) drug trafficking. Mister Maduro and his wife were spritied away from their country to New York on charges of (need to look at these notes) "narco terrorism." 

Speaking of notes, I just checked: Honduras has no oil reserves. Venezuela is sitting on the world's largest proven oil reserves. 

Meanwhile, countries are lining up to condemn the actions of the least popular "president" in American history. Russia, for one. "The pretexts used to justify such actions are untenable. Ideological hostility has triumphed over businesslike pragmatism," said Russia's foreign ministry. 

Russia, in case you've forgotten is currently at war with Ukraine because of ideological hostility, negating businesslike pragmatism. Which pretty much finishes off any possible credibility the U.S. might have running around their own hemisphere stirring up trouble. 

And what about Congress? Well, Little Marco Rubio did call Florida Representative Carlos Gimenez to say, "We got him." Which I suppose amounts to this administration involving Congress in the acts of war it feels the urge to carry out in lieu of releasing the unredacted Trumpstein Files. The orange buffoon says he'll be running Venezuela for now. He bankrupted three of his own casinos. What could go wrong? 

For now the clock is ticking, but make sure to tune into the next episode which will be every bit as infuriating and confusing as the last. 

Call Me

 Just for my own peace of mind, I went to the National Do Not Call Registry. I wanted to be sure that I hadn't mistakenly believed that I had signed up both my home number and my cell phone so that I could have "a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls." I was happy to see my suspicions confirmed: I had signed up our landline more than twenty years ago, and my mobile number a dozen years earlier. 

How could it be that after all this time I still regularly receive calls with a bright red warning on the caller ID: Scam Likely? 

Well, sadly this notion did not occur to me until I was this many years old, but I don't think this particular government agency is actively working to keep my number from being called by telemarketers and robocalls. One of the three main links on the Registry page is "Report Unwanted Calls." While I appreciate this outlet, I do wonder how I have suddenly become the investigative arm of the Federal Trade Commission. In my voluminous spare time it seems that the FTC would like me to inform them when people with access to a list that includes my name call me, even though they shouldn't have my name on that list because I am on the Do Not Call List.

This is probably just me being naïve, but it seems like the volume of calls that I get on a daily basis should be enough to step up the enforcement end of this annoyance. 

Of course, it probably doesn't help matters that I tend to accept these calls primarily out of the sideways notion that I might be performing some sort of public service. If I am taking the call from the medical alert scams that are offering "free" devices to those who "need" it only to discover that there is a monthly fee to keep the device working, then perhaps someone a lot more gullible than myself won't have to take the chance of being sold something they don't really need. Usually I try to string the poor schnook on the other end of the line long enough with painfully obvious questions and revelations to the point that they hang up on me. The five minutes they spend with me is five less minutes they have to prey on the folks out there who have not gone through all that trouble to get themselves on the Do Not Call Registry. 

Did I say naïve? 

Hopelessly. The fact that Scam Likely, of the Connecticut Likelys, has the capacity to "spoof" local numbers giving you the impression that the droid at the other end of the line must be calling from a cubicle within your area code leads me to believe that I have two choices: Answer every call and enjoy the danger of signing myself up for a free box of anti-viral meds, or stop using my phone at all. 

If you have any suggestions on this matter, you can reach me at 1-888-382-1222. 

Pieces Of A Peace Plan

 By the way it's been more than (checks watch) twenty-four hours since the Sterile Cuckoo took office, so his promise to end the war in Ukraine seems to have been yet another limp attempt at a promise that he has not been able to keep. A little like the oath he took to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. To release the Epstein files. To make America Great Again. To make America Affordable again. To flush after hours of sitting on the toilet posting to "Truth" Social. 

Promises made, promises forgotten. 

This past week was particularly galling as one of those late night sit-downs with his phone resulted in the announcement that the United States had carried out strikes against terrorists in NIgeria. On Christmas Eve. There were also military actions against that "narco-terrorist" threat Venezuala. If this seems a little confusing to you since you know that war cannot be declared without consulting Congress, that may be because under the leadership of Mike "I hadn't heard about that" Johnson, the House of Representatives only worked eighty-seven days last year. But don't worry about those folks. They received full salary and health benefits while they let the Affordable Care Act subsidies disappear. 

Fret not, because there is a plan. Or so the Cuckoo promised. Concepts of a plan.

Meanwhile, back in Mar-A-Lago, marching orders were given and obeyed by the "peace team" by none other than the guy who invaded Ukraine in the first place. Vlad "The Inhaler" Putin called his minion the convicted felon just before negotiations were to begin with President Zelenskyy to make sure the concepts of that plan were clear. Putin later recounted that call for Russia's state news: The Kremlin further said that Epstein's favorite customer “was shocked by this news, literally outraged.” That news was the "terrorist attack" Ukraine launched against one of Vlad's residences. “He said he couldn’t even imagine such crazy actions. And, as stated, this will undoubtedly impact American approaches to working with Zelenskyy, whom, as Trump himself said, thank God, the current administration hasn’t given ‘Tomahawks,’” continued the only voice to which our twice-impeached "president" responds.

Shockingly, this is the same guy who won the recently invented FIFA Peace Prize. 

I suppose there's a lot about soccer I still don't understand. 

2026

 Twenty twenty-six

It's another chance

An opportunity

If you will

To turn things

not just left

or to the right

To change course

To make room

for all of us

To make changes

for all of us

To correct

some of the wrongs

To shine a light

To start to break free

Two hundred fifty years

It feels like time

To let freedom ring

For everyone

A new year

A very old idea

Let's begin again