Sacrifice

 Welcome to that part of the year in which an alternate universe would find the felon we elected "president" being sentenced for his crimes. The conventional wisdom I suppose was that the prosecutors didn't want to run afoul of any of that "presidential immunity" nonsense, so they steered clear of putting a guy who was found guilty on thirty-four separate counts of fraud in jail while he was trying to run for the highest office in the land. The original sentencing date was in July, just days before the Republican National Convention. That didn't happen in this universe. Nor did it happen at any point after that. As a matter of fact Jack Smith, once seen as the pit bull who was going to finally bring the big orange blob of nefarious protoplasm down, dropped the rest of the bag of charges against the big orange blob of nefarious protoplasm.

I think of Bluto Blutarsky, before he became a United States Senator, as he wondered whatever became of the Delta he used to know. This is the Democratic Party, not given to stirring up a fuss or insurrection, after all. It is quite likely that a strongly worded letter will be written on behalf of those of us left with the wreckage of what we believed would be the big push to locking up the former game show host. 

And if that leaves a sour taste in your mouth, feel free to join the club. For those among us who believe the chief reason for Hannibal Lecter's biggest fan to run for "president" in the first place was to stay out of jail, this comes as yet another reminder of just how awful the scales of justice can be tweaked for those in a position to tweak them. 

For us, the furious, I offer you the solace of seeing Rudy Giuliani chopped up into little pieces and fed to the masses. Never mind that this is the fall guy for the "president elect." The guy who once organized a news conference at a landscaping company to insist that the 2020 election had been "stolen" four years ago is not in jail. But he has had his money, his cars, his license to practice law and just about everything else of value stripped from him over the past few months. 

Because he seems to be the sacrificial lamb. He's the one that got left behind when the circus moved on to 2024. I am incapable of feeling anything remotely like sympathy for Rudy, but I do wonder how he got picked to take the legal beating for the rest of those crooks. 

In another universe, Rudy Giuliani decided to dump everything and turn state's evidence on his old boss. Before he ever had a chance to run for office. 

Another time. Another place. Maybe another landscaping company. 

Cost

 Shortly after the smoke from the election began to clear, my son announced that he was going out to buy himself a new television. As mentioned her on several occasions, he is a clever lad, and he is capable of seeing the forest for the trees. In this particular version of that metaphor, the forest was the tariffs proposed by the "president" elect, and the trees were televisions. Made in China. My son understood the basic economic principle that tariffs would cause consumer prices to rise, since the taxes levied on imported goods would be passed along to consumers. And if you know anything about my son, it's that he is a good little consumer. 

I'm writing this in case you were one of those folks who heard that Felonious Monk and his gang of MAGAts were going to use tariffs on foreign made products and you figured he must know what he's doing. 

Spoiler alert: He doesn't.

But that didn't stop him from promoting this like it was some newfangled notion that will solve our trade deficit. 

Spoiler alert: It won't.

So much so that Walmart's Chief Financial Officer, John David Rainey, announced that once these tariffs go into effect prices on "certain items" might go up. "We never want to raise prices. Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers." Sorry folks, but the Walton family needs new shoes too, and they don't do all their shopping at Walmart. They've got to put bread on the table, and neither the table nor the bread is coming from Sam's Club. If you're paying a little extra to keep the Waltons on the Forbes 400 list, well I guess that's just part of doing business in the dystopian hellscape into which we are about to plunge. 

And it's probably only an odd coincidence that in that same announcement, Walmart is now rolling back DEI policies like they used to do with prices. I guess that's just the price of doing business in Felonious Monk's Amerika. 

No Thanks?

 It would be easy enough

to say "thanks for nothing."

To forget all the amazing things

that happened before

and since

and in spite of.

It would be easy enough

to say "thanks for nothing" 

as we wander through 

the impending doom.

It is a bigger challenge to remember

things like silver linings

or the dawn of each new day.

Sometimes it's difficult to recall

that all things must pass

when you're standing in line

or waiting for the light to change.

It's time to do the difficult thing

It's time to dig down deep

Be glad you're a live

to face another day

And prepare for the next

Thank you for reading. 

Out Of Reach

 "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

I chose these words, not long ago, to highlight the indefatigable spirit of this great land of ours. I was echoing the sentiments of John F. Kennedy Jr. to remind us all what is possible when we set our minds and hearts together. We were on a mission. And yes, there were doubters, but we were coming together in a moment of strife. We did go to the moon. So many times that, for some, it became a bore. 

Fifty years later, we have a group of billionaires who, not unlike Charles Foster Kane, think "it would be fun to run a space program." The highlight of these excursions thus far has been taking the fictional Captain of the Starship Enterprise into outer space for real, and returning him to a massive fit of depression. Some might argue this is karma payback for all those times William Shatner, in the guise of James T. Kirk, thumbed his nose at convention and dared to boldly go blah, blah, blah. 

If it seems a little hypocritical of me to cast aspersions at Elongated Mush's lust for glory that is tied to the colonization of Mars, I can accept that. I can accept it because I will cop to just about anything that brings more attention to the fragile ego and overall creepiness of the man who never invented anything. He used his daddy's money to buy into growing concerns and acted like they were his ideas all along. 

This is why I was glad to have my favorite science guy and yours, Neil deGrasse Tyson make the following pronouncement on Bill Maher's show: “My read of the history of space exploration is such that we do big, expensive things only when it’s geopolitically expedient, such as we feel threatened by an enemy. And so for him to just say, let’s go to Mars because it’s the next thing to do. What is that venture capitalist meeting look like? ‘So, Elon, what do you want to do?’ ‘I want to go to Mars?’ ‘How much will it cost?’ ‘$1 trillion.’ ‘Is it safe?’ ‘No. People will probably die.’ ‘What’s the return on the investment?’ ‘Nothing.’ That’s a five minute meeting. And it doesn’t happen.”

Which, coming from a die-hard fan of space exploration myself, is still the kind of reality check that needs to happen a lot more often for puffy, arrogant know-it-all. Which reminds me of a quote from another great science guy, Isaac Asimov: :"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."

Hey Elon: Go back to doing what you're really good at. Destroying Twitter and jumping up and down like a dork.  

Practice

 Okay kids, gather 'round the table. Let's all share the things for which we are thankful this year.

Crickets chirp.

A tumbleweed rolls by. 

Somewhere down the street, you can hear one of the neighbors drop a pin. 

This one is going to be extremely difficult. That's why I'm suggesting to look outward this year for the ritual that will be difficult on a day full of family and friends. You might even discover a previously undiscovered MAGA skeleton among your relations. 

"You know, having RFK Jr. in there will really help get our country's health back on the right track."

Or maybe, "I think it's high time we had a Department of Efficiency in our government, and who better to lead it than those two billionaires?"

You might even get, "I don't know if we gave Trump a chance back in 2016. Maybe we just need to be more open minded."

If these kind of conversation starters pop up during your holiday meal, feel free to do what I do whenever I see a Cybertruck anywhere in the world: Laugh out loud. Not just a "lol" but a full-on gut busting guffaw. One that might make the neighbors wonder if you might need to up your medication. As the freak show continues to assemble in anticipation of what will most likely be the most dysfunctional administration since the one headed by the convicted felon the first time. While I understand the impulse to mourn what might have been, please keep this foremost in your mind: Donald Trump has never won the popular vote in any election in which he has participated. The "mandate" of the people just isn't there. If that doesn't give you room for a hearty chuckle or at least another slice of pie, just remember Matt Gaetz no longer has a job. 

Signage

mace (noun 1) : an aromatic spice consisting of the dried external fibrous covering of a nutmeg

mace (noun 2) a: a heavy often spiked staff or club used especially in the Middle Ages for breaking armor

b: a club used as a weapon

mace (verb) : to attack with the liquid Mace

Mace (noun 3) : an irritant, used to drive people away and provoke unnecessary torment

Okay, with the definitions out of the way, let's talk bathrooms. Many of these meanings could and possibly will be important during this discussion. Let's begin with the election of 2024. You may be completely sick and tired of hearing about it, but there were a few bright spots. Sarah McBride became the first transgender person to be elected to Congress. Representing the Blue Hen State, ushering in a new age of equity and diversity in that august body. 

Sorry. I had to pause because of the sheer weight of the sarcasm inflected by that last sentence. 

Of course not. Suddenly everyone's concern went to the bathroom. The tired and ugly phrase "biological sex" was trotted out not just in an angry tweet or Facebook screed. This time it was a member of Congress who chose to make it her mission to cleanly avoid any discussion of gender and just plough straight into the hysterics about men invading "women's places." Her name is Nancy Mace. 

The representative from the Palmetto State decided to write a bill of her own to back up her position. Then she told anyone who would listen: “Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” adding that McBride, "does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop." Her plan, such as it is, invites the Sergeant At Arms of the House to enforce this petulant bit of legislation. It only took a few moments for the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to fall in line with that and issued a policy that he was going to use his "general control" of the facilities of the House to bar people from using bathrooms that he and his pal Nancy don't believe they should be using. 

For her part, Ms. McBride responded, “This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars. Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on.”

Sarah McBride will attempt to show us what happens when you bring a reasoned argument to a mace fight. 

People Who Need People

 I was, and continue to be, challenged by doing business with corporations and people and corporations who it turns out are people. I have struggled with the assertion made that ordering a new pair of work pants from Amazon is feeding the beast that is killing our country. I do not have a clever answer that tips the guilt out of that interaction. Clicking on a button that makes those simple transactions as easy as clicking on a button is hard to resist when you consider the time and expense of going to a real store and making that same purchase.

And not shoving more money into the overstuffed pockets of Jeff Bezos. 

Then there's the matter of our solar energy. Years ago when my wife and I chose to invest in the future of our planet by installing solar panels on the roof of our house, we picked Solar City to do the job. A local company that did a great job and made us feel like we were on the right side of history. 

Until they were devoured by Tesla. 

Suddenly, our troubleshooting calls were rerouted through a series of chutes and bots and real people were taken out of the loop. We were encouraged to try to find answers on the Tesla website which was much more geared toward selling visitors a new electric car than helping support owners of a product purchased by one of their subsidiaries. Worst of all, from my vantage point, the icon for the monitor of our system on my phone changed to that creepy satanic T that stands for Tesla and all the evil that it embodies. 

It was during this same wedge of time that I decided to join Twitter, seeing as how my blogs were such a hit with ten to twelve readers, why not take the opportunity to join a community where I could pass off my tiny bon mots as tiny modular bits of what you might find here if you looked. But Twitter gave me a group of fellow snarks with whom I could relate. 

Then came the dark times. When that same evil empire choked down that little blue bird in one gulp and turned it into a big black X. I told anybody who would listen that I was going to stick around and watch that house burn down around me. I watched as this purported bastion of free speech became a breeding ground for far-right parasites anxious to further their MAGAt aggenda. 

So last Wednesday, I packed up my metaphorical bags and left. I went to the much more tranquil cyberspread called Bluesky. Bye bye, Elongated Mush. So long ads for Bible Belt Buckles. Auf Wiedersehen Nazis. I don't think this is the kind of change that will make the world a better place, but at least my little corner will be a little less controlled by evil. At least that's what I want to tell myself.