Look Back In Anger

 It's been another hard day on the planet. A whole mess of them, as a matter of fact. This past year will not be remembered for all of the joy and excitement it brought to this world. 

2025 saw the loss of Rob Reiner, Diane Keaton and Ozzy Osbourne to name just a few. It might not be too rough an angle to suggest that these were the ones who perhaps cosmically got off easily. They didn't have to stick around and watch as things went from rotten to really rotten. Finding a corner of this past calendar that was not diminished in some way by the convicted felon who somehow found his way into the rubble that used to be the White House would be a fool's errand. 

Not that there have not been moments of sunlight poking through the gloom. I truly enjoyed my trip to the moving picture show of the most recent iteration of Superman. For a couple of hours, I actually enjoyed watching a hero, an immigrant, working to save his home from the machinations of an evil billionaire bent on putting his name on everything he touches. Spoiler alert: Supes doesn't beat him up. His dog does. 

If I ruminated on things long enough, I might be able to come up with a few more moments of hope and peace, but mostly there was that seemingly omnipresent orange haze that seemed to obscure most every interaction, experience and home appliance. Each day brought a new absurd hatefully delivered message or decree. The Department of Defense morphed into the Department of War. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency had its budget increased to nearly thirty billion dollars, while the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment was hired to shut down the Department of Education. 

The United States is blowing up fishing boats and bombing Nigeria on Christmas.

Big Bird was sent packing as well as Public Broadcasting would not be spared. Sesame Street has been eliminated. Meanwhile, the richest man in the world stepped in to make the government more efficient by leaving children across the globe to starve. 

As prices continue to climb for most everything from groceries to health care, more and more Americans will suffer and starve while the convicted felon continues to promote himself and the fancy new marble armrests he wants to install in the Epstein Center for the Performing Arts. Sounds a little excessive, but he doesn't care. He's not paying for it. 

We are. 

Every day. 

This year.

Yuck. 

Passing

 I sat in a pew near the back of a Baptist church in East Oakland and thought about how much my father would have loved it. 

The call and response. The exhortation for amens. The singing. The sermons. The not-so-silent prayers. 

He was a fan of gospel. It made him get al misty-eyed. If he had been in attendance for my fifth grade colleague's memorial service, he would have been sobbing. 

As a result, I was moved as well. I could feel the spirit in the room as I nodded and swayed to the powerful cadences created by the reverend. I am sure that because, as we all discovered, Mister Lynch was also known as The Reverend Doctor Lynch that we were gifted with a series of preachers all of whom were there to pay tribute to their brother. The chapel was awash in all things holy. 

So I set my cynically agnostic brain on standby and let the warm glow of the proceedings fill my heart and soul. The past two weeks leading up to the service had been a struggle, filled with all the doubts and pain that grief present. All of which centered on the hole created by losing a member of our community. When the reverend asked those of us who had worked with The Reverend Doctor Mister Lynch to stand, a full two rows of us rose. I could feel the love and support of those in attendance rush over us.

Amen. 

I listened to the words. I felt the warmth that helped to soothe the confusion. I was a part of something much bigger, and I felt better than I had since I had gotten the call with the news. And at the same time I felt an associated burden, one of connection and responsibility to go out from this place and remember all the things that this man had been and done. 

And I thought of my father who left far too soon. 

And how much he would have loved this. 

Amen. 

Way Out

 Please show me the way out of 2025. 

While I can say that personally I have enjoyed a great many moments throughout this past trip around the sun, I can honestly say that my experience as an American citizen has been far less than fulfilling. 

My career as an elementary teacher has brought me great satisfaction as I have been navigating ever closer to its somewhat tumultuous end. I have been heartened to feel the warmth and camaraderie brought on by spending all those years at the same location. Unfortunately, I find myself at the same time confronted by the real value impressed on education in this great land of ours by once again struggling against budget shortfalls and a salary that pretends to acknowledge the depth of my commitment. I feel somewhat foolish turning once again to the community that I serve to ask them to rally behind us once again as teachers go begging for conditions and compensation that correspond to the service we render. 

This year has been a nearly constant reminder of the value set by those in power for education. Rather than feeling rewarded for a job conscientiously and well done, we have seen budgets for those departments meant to oppress get fed while teachers are left to fight for scraps. 

I know. Sounds a little bit like I am unsatisfied with the basic tennents of my employment. In a country that continues to attempt to alleviate public funding for public schools? Yes, I suppose you could say that I am at odds with that reality. 

And yet, each morning I rise to tilt with those same windmills. 

Happily, I do this quixotic task with a group of like-minded individuals who either never noticed that they are not being paid for all the extra jobs they take on over the course of any and every day or cheerfully take them on (ready for the cliche?) for the kids. 

That cliche is precisely what keeps me tumbling out of bed to face another day in a job that can be one of the most satisfying I can imagine. The edge is taken off just a touch by marching headlong into the fray with a band of like-minded individuals who show up ready to help me roll that boulder up to the top of the hill, if only to pause for a moment before realizing that the same task awaits us the next day. The next week. 

The next semester. 

It's coming. And I am planning on being there to meet that challenge. Forgive me if I sometimes notice the struggle. 

Golden Ticket

 How much do you suppose Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory would go for on today's market? The minimal research I did to estimate the yearly cost to run the place came in around two hundred million dollars a year. This estimate includes a salary and heathcare plan for the Oompa Loompas who rightly control the means of production, That alone runs in the neighborhood of eighty million a year, which obviously brings up the question of fair compensation for tiny chocolatiers and just what amounts to a living wage for what I had assumed was essentially slave labor. And does Mister Wonka really need to keep that chocolate river running twenty-four/seven?

I started ruminating on this when I read that one ticket was selected to win the one point eight billion dollar Powerball jackpot last week. This grand prize was projected to pay off at eight hundred thirty-four million. 

An interesting thing, this taxing of brand new billionaires. If I'm doing the math correctly, I notice that the government is getting more than half of the jackpot, which reminds me of the chorus of "what abouts" that surround every major financial windfall. Oh sure, I could love to win a couple billion dollars, but "what about the taxes?"

Elongated Mush would have a fit, not to be confused with his regularly scheduled fits, if he had to pay more than fifty percent of his earnings in taxes. This also suggests that he might make an excellent candidate for taking over the Wonka enterprise if his limited capacity for imagination would allow him to accept a world of pure imagination. Jeff Bezos also has some experience running business with minimally compensated labor, so he might also be a good candidate. 

But now we are left to ponder just what this lone new nearly-billionaire will do with the fortune they have just fallen into. Perhaps instead of taking over a chocolate factory, they might like to buy the world a Coke. That one-shot bit of altruism would cost you nearly ten billion dollars. Back in 1971 when the cola giant set that notion afloat, the commercial they made cost a quarter of a million dollars just to get those fresh-faced hippies up on that hill to sing in perfect harmony. 

It's nice not to have the worries that all that money brings. 

Sonny The POTUS

 If, and this is on a high degree of conditionality, you believe Faux News "personality" Jesse Watters, the Cheeto In Chief told him that the reason he is building a beast of a ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand: "I’m building a monument to myself because no one else will."

Which tracks pretty well, all things considered. 

There is a scientific basis for all this renaming and tacking up gaudy bric-a-brac on any and all surfaces around him. Consider, if you will, the cuckoo bird. 

Leaving aside for a moment or two the alleged addictive these avians have for a certain chocolatey breakfast cereal, let us instead focus on the way cuckoos tend to house themselves. They practice a very rare trait called brood parasitism, meaning that they tend to steal other birds' nests. Once their eggs are in place, they kick the actual owner's eggs out and make the place their own. 

Cuckoos do this just a little more surrepticiously than the Orange Worst. They don't tend to hire contractors to place giant golden Ts on the front of the nest or declare that they deserve to be recognized in perpetuity for building something that has been part of the collective cuckoo history for decades. This is how they differ from the flightless orange bird who is currently stealing the nest of American Democracy. 

In many ways, the way that your average dog marks his territory has more in common with the way the convicted felon is attempting to insinuate himself into our culture. As a measuring stick, even Putin and Kim Jong Un lack the temerity to name an entire class of naval ships after themselves. 

Not content to wait around to see if his legacy sticks, the featured player in the Trumpstein Files seems compelled to make his mark on a country that even now wonders how this buffoon got where he is in the first place. 

The answer is simple.

He's cuckoo. 

Probable Cause

 It's not a secret if everyone knows it. 

While sitting around attempting to negotiate the release of the Trumpstein files as if they were hostages being held at the top floor of the Nakatomi Plaza, the rest of the world seems to have moved on. This includes one (checks notes) William Jefferson Clinton. 

You may remember Mister Clinton from an earlier iteration of the drama taking place in and around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He's the guy who once insisted, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" And that was how the forty-second President of the United States got impeached. It's probably not a stretch to suggest that his Vice President missed out on a chance to be number forty-three because of all that hullaballoo. Instead, we got the very upright and moral Pinhead Painter of cute dogs. 

So this Clinton fellow had a spokesperson release this statement: "The Epstein Files Transparency Act imposes a clear legal duty on the U.S. Department of Justice to produce the full and complete record the public demands and deserves. However, what the Department of Justice has released so far, and the manner in which it did so, makes one thing clear: someone or something is being protected. We do not know whom, what or why. But we do know this: We need no such protection.”

Let the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune fly. The pitiable mass of redactions that the Department of "Justice" released at the last minute was hardly that full and complete record. Then they said that they weren't going to release them all because the Sharpies had all run out of ink. The King of England didn't need all that fuss to go ahead and kick his brother out of the line of succession. 

Or something like that. 

Meanwhile, this senile gaseous emission continues to prattle on about his wife's undergarments while his billionaire cronies attempt to clean up the messes he continues to make. Like his pal Bari Weiss who is busy creating state media our of what was once CBS news. Bari blocked a Sixty Minutes report about the treatment of deportees at the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador. 

Except the Sixty Minutes piece did manage to make the air in Canada. And some clever Canucks made it available online. For the world to see. Not unlike the Access Hollywood tape that should have been enough to disqualify the Orange Worst from the presidency in the first place, this piece let us in on what the rest of the galaxy already understood: this is most definitely not business as usual. Much in the same way that Jack Smith recently reminded us all that he has more than enough evidence to prove that the convicted felon currently vandalizing the White House is guilty of attempting to overthrow the 2020 election. 

Why does this continue? When Americans can be kidnapped by ICE goons and sent to foreign lands because of their choice of baseball caps, why can't we get rid of a "president" who falls asleep during cabinet meetings? 

Christmas Sells

  I learned as much about Christmas from watching animated specials on television as I did by reading the Bible. 

This might sound sacriligeous, and it probably is, but Linus Van Pelt is where I first heard the words from the Book of Luke. I did not know it at the time, but that little bit almost kept the Columbia Broadcasting System from airing it back in 1965, but then it went on to become a staple of my family's holiday viewing. "Too religious," they worried. 

Of course this doesn't mention the core message of that first Peanuts TV special is all about how commercialized Christmas has become. Sponsored by Coca-Cola. Keeping in mind that this half hour cartoon came in second place behind Bonanza with ratings that certified it as a hit, ensuring that it would be seen again and again for decades to come. 

Also ensuring that T-shirts and dolls and sheets and lunchboxes featuring the likenesses of Charlie Brown and the gang would sell and keep selling each time the viewing public was reminded of another holiday by Mister Schulz and his band of animators. The folks at Dolly Madison were extremely happy with the sales generated by their sponsorship of the "non-commercialization" broadcasts. 

A year after the initial airing of Charlie Brown learning the true meaning of Christmas, the incredible partnership of Chuck Jones, Boris Karloff and Dr. Seuss brought the story of the Grinch stealing Christmas into our living room. This special was also a great big hit, destined to be aired over and over again each December, and eventually remade into a feature motion picture starring Jim Carrey and directed by Opie Cunningham. It had all the manic energy of a Road Runner cartoon, but with the sublime message once again that "Christmas didn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas means a little bit more." 

All these wholesome messages don't come cheap. These days, if you want to enjoy the True Meaning of Christmas, you'll need to sign up for one of those streaming services to catch it. Sure, you won't have to sit through commercials for snack cakes, but you will be fortifying Apple and Peacock with your subscription. 

And isn't that what Christmas is all about?