Right Now

 In what obscure model of the universe is this a sane country anymore? 

Detaining five year old children because their father fled in fear of being kidnapped by masked goons is now part of our everyday reality. The father of little Liam Canejo Ramos has a pending asylum case with no orders for deportation. And yet, now father and son are currently in government custody. How a preschooler fits into a scenario involving "the worst of the worst" remains to be seen. 

Could it be worse than worst? Well, if involves ICE, the answer is an unqualified "you betcha." Only a few days later, ICE goons attacked, beat, then shot a protester out on the streets to condemn the murder of another innocent American citizen, Renee Good. Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse unaffiliated with the similarly acronymed ICE, was attacked and killed on the streets of Minneapolis. By Border Patrol agents. 

Minneapolis, Minnesota. One thousand four hundred sixty-five miles from the U.S./Mexico border. 

Or just two hundred fifty miles from the U.S./Canada border.

If you're a MAGAt, it would be hard to choose a worse threat than these two foreign menaces. The way they openly defy the wishes of Mad King Worst. But rather than getting into a shootin' war with those countries, why not send locked and loaded masked idjits to a city in the country you pretend to govern to terrorize and kill  the people right here in the United States?

Minnesota happens to be the home of Governor Tim Walz, who in another version of this story would now be Vice President of the United States. Instead of the Pope-Killer we have now. Governor Tim might have spent the past several months giving out tips on how to keep your lawnmower running at peak performance and sharing recipes for hot-dish with visiting heads of state. 

No, we're living in the model of the universe in which Americans are being shot and killed by the Secret Police, and toddlers are being snatched up off the street on their way home from school. Because, we are told, this will Make America Great Again. 

News Flash: This is the kind of behavior that made Germany into one of history's most grotesque punchlines. This is the kind of behavior that I used to protest as a member of Amnesty International when despots in foreign lands would disappear their dissenters. 

This is happening in America. 

This is happening in America right now. 

Socks

 I got stuck in a loop a few mornings back. The quad-pacertm on my electric toothbrush beeped to remind me to change the corner of my mouth in which I was scrubbing and I noticed that it had taken more than thirty seconds to pull one of my socks on. As is my wont, I began to fret that I was losing valuable seconds in my race to be ready to bike to work on time. 

To be fair, I was attempting this feat in the dark with only my left hand as my right was busy holding the toothbrush that was filling my mouth with minty-fresh foam and beeping every thirty seconds to remind me to switch quadrants of my mouth for brushing. 

And reminding me of just how long it takes me to put on my socks with one hand. In the dark. As my mind might or should have been focused on other things. 

But because every day is a race against time, I was hyper-aware of the need to clear my throat when I walked out to the kitchen to ask our Google Home Assistant to please put toilet paper on the shopping list. I wondered how much time I was saving compared to the seconds it would have taken me to scratch the letters "TP" on a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator. 

Still, I couldn't shake that thirty second threshold for putting on a sock. How was I going to scrape together any free moments in the course of my day if it took me a full  minute to pull on both my socks? 

As I moved through the rest of my routine that took me out into the world where my bicycle was waiting to carry me to work, I noted that this too was an act totally dependent on the efficiency of my mechanism. Opening the door, rolling the bike out into the dawn to the front gate, opening said gate and then taking a moment once I was astride to set the timer on my watch to count the minutes it would take me to pedal to school. 

Could I possibly make up any time after the sock debacle? 

In the galactic scheme of things, this is not a true crisis. The orbits of the celestial bodies I could observe with my naked eye were not affected by my malingering. The custodian and my principal didn't comment when I arrived before the sun was fully over the horizon. "What took you so long? Trouble getting your socks on?"

That didn't happen. Instead, I found myself with just enough time to sit down and craft this little essay for you, dear reader. 

Imagine how much better it could have been if I'd had more time.  

The Smell Of Elderberries

 Somewhere last Wednesday, it was Taco Tuesday. 

Perhaps it was something about the international dateline, but somehow Taco was on full display this past Wednesday. 

Trump Always Chickens Out. 

After weeks of insisting that he was going to take the autonomous territory of Greenland by any means necessary, including the use of military force, he backed down. In the face of the stern faces of world bankers and leaders of the European Union, he gracelessly stumbled backward on his promise to seize the island nation in the Arctic Ocean. 

Instead, he burbled something about a "framework" that would allow him to be satisfied with conditions to remain essentially the same as they were before he started making all his scary faces and noises. This "concept of a deal" was announced with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the same group the convicted felon had been threatening for days just prior to Dear Leader's trip to Switzerland. If this sounds vaguely reminiscent of the "concepts of a plan" the adjudicated rapist had on a health plan, you'd be correct. 

The folks sitting across from this orange clown recognized the Worst when they saw it. They were able to do something that the United States Congress has been unwilling to do for more than a year now: Just Say No. Not tariffs. No invasion. No mucking about with agreements between nations that have stood the test of time. Take your Taco Bell and go back to the mess you made back in the country that left you in charge. 

And if you think you got a nasty taunting this time, you ain't heard nothing yet, daffy American President!

Maybe Mike Johnson just needs to watch more Monty Python. 

Strife

 I spent half an hour this past Tuesday afternoon unraveling the strained relationship between two third grade girls. Initially I thought the conflict was between the two girls who initially entered the office. After a few minutes of histrionics from one of them, I understood that she wasn't specifically involved in whatever social slight had occurred. She was just there, loudly advocating for her friend's hurt feelings. Once deep breaths had been taken by all concerned, she was sent on her way.

At this point, I interviewed the lone allegedly offended young lady. She was upset because yet another third grade girl had not offered her any gum. 

I asked if she knew the school rule prohibiting gum and candy. This was not the line of questioning that she wanted to pursue, so she plowed ahead with her tale of wounded feelings and ostracization. After being denied her piece of gum, this other girl turned to still another third grade girl and whispered something. 

Something that must obviously have been salacious and rude and hurtful. 

I wondered out loud once again if there had been no gum involved if any of this would have happened. 

No response. 

So I called for the offending party to come to the office. When she arrived, I had her sit down and recount the events that led to the squabble that was keeping anything resembling pleasant after school activities from happening. Hers was not tremendously different from the initial tale of woe that I had heard, but somehow the one proffering the gum became the victim. She was only consorting with her friends because she was worried that "something" would happen. 

I asked her if any of this would have happened if there had been no gum. I was surprised at the length and breadth of the response to what I had imagined was a yes or no question. There were far too many young feelings on the block already and there would be no quick resolution. I allowed the two of them to rehash their versions one more time, asking that each listen to the other as they ran through it. When that was done, I asked if either one could point out any significant difference between the two. 

As it turned out, the answer was "not really." I told them that I could not imagine a reality in which this quarrel existed without the gum. After some mild prodding, neither could they. Nor could they come up with a reason for the two of them to sit in the office any longer when the rest of the third grade was outside enjoying the afternoon sun. "You don't have to be best friends," I reminded them for the sake of my repeating my own philosophy, "but you do have to get along."

There was a moment when each of them began to raise an objection, but the look on my face must have told them that this particular dispute was over. They were going to have to go back outside and pretend to get along until the next perceived slight. 

I hoped to be most of the way home on my bike before that happened. 

How?

 "Well," to paraphrase David Byrne, "how did we get here?"

Here we are in the early part of the twenty-first century without interstellar travel or affordable eggs. This is not the future that I had hoped for back when I was eleven. Or twenty-one. Or thirty-one.

And so on. 

This past weekend's release of a note from the occupant of the ruins of the White House, addressed to the Prime Minister of Norway, brought the collective us one step closer to no future at all. If you're not familiar by now with the contents, the convicted felon and petulant child wrote: "Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer ‍feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America." 

For the record, the Prime Minister has on several occasions explained to the twice-impeached leader of the Trumpreich that Nobel Prizes are not awarded by his country but rather by an independent committee.

No matter. Full speed ahead. Bombs away. Greenland or bust. 

If all of this chicanery is truly an attempt to distract the rest of the planet from the ugly truth about the adjudicated rapist's conduct with his very close friend Jeffrey Epstein, then I might suggest that our republic wasn't as strong and viable as we might once have imagined. The idea that politicians are crooked is not a new one. Dating back as far as ancient Greece and Rome, we were gifted with the term "kleptocracy," rule by thieves. 

As I have mentioned here before, I lived through the rule of King Richard the Crooked back in the late sixties, and the pinheaded warmongering of the Pinhead George W, but nothing in those regimes prepared me for what confronts us now. Though we are admonished not to do so, the only historical parallels that come abruptly to the fore are those of Germany in the late 1930s. 

And while it seems possible that Hitler's final solution was generated out of a need to cover up some personal embarrassment, but his mania seemed to be based entirely on the insane ideal of a Master Race. The former game show host in the here and now seems to be guided primarily by the need to stay out of jail. 

And in a horrible twist of irony, to earn a Nobel Peace Prize. 

Tis The Season

 I have the Denver Broncos National Football franchise to thank for giving me the better part of six months of distraction from "the outside world." During this period I watched only bits and pieces of the games that they played, eighteen of them during this past season, due to my inability to stare directly into the glare of the actual competition. This did not keep me from feeling the tension and anxiety associated with spectator sports that many individuals experience by actually watching their favorite team play. Amongst the seemingly endless quirks about my character is this odd fascination/avoidance combination. It makes for some strange behaviors on any given weekend from August through January. 

This past weekend, I enlisted the help of my very patient wife to stare at the goings-on in Mile High Stadium. She understands the significance of the decade that has passed since "our team" has been to the Super Bowl. As I sat in the office, looking for ways to distract myself, she watched the entire second half of the Broncos/Bills game, encouraging me every so often to "come and look at this." Every so often I would stray out of my self-imposed cocoon and watch a play or two. Just enough to feel that creeping pain in my neck from the tension created by caring about a group of men playing football in a city in a state where I used to live more than half my life ago. 

Why should I care? I have been disappointed far more often than I have been brought joy from this association. It is a condition that I was actively attempting to address even as the Denver Broncos continued to find a way to make me care. 

It's just a game. 

The joy I felt when "our team" prevailed was cautiously out of scale for the outcome. There were still games to be played for the victors. Contrastingly, there were tears in the eyes of the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills as he addressed the media. The Bills' coach was fired two days later. For taking his team all the way to the doorstep of a championship. This is, after all, big business and losing is not the way to hang on to a job in the National Football League. And in the midst of the mildly ridiculous euphoria that was my home came the news that Denver's quarterback had suffered a broken ankle and would not be able to participate in any of the games left to be played this postseason. 

Once again I felt relief from having to care, but mired in the past with a heart that somehow continues to bleed orange and blue. This is a legitimate medical condition I can assure you and may be the root cause of all this madness. 

At least that's what I will continue to tell myself for at least one more week. 

Definitely

 I know. There is a convicted felon in the White House whose cognitive abilities have been measured by the ability to identify various sorts of wildlife. "Hey, I know that one! My son shot one of those!"

But maybe, just maybe, we're measuirng the wrong thing. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is used to detect mild cognitive impairment. 

There is nothing mild about the cognitive impairment found between the ears of the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He seems to actually believe that because the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize handed it to him, that it transfers to him. This is a guy who openly campaigned for the prize by threatening anyone who had the temerity to disagree with his whimsical notions about international and domestic affairs with military force.

Sure. He knows what a giraffe is, but peace? Please. 

Instead, maybe we should focus on testing for sociopathy. You know, "a pattern of behavior characterized by a disregard for societal norms, lack of empathy, manipulation, deceit, and impulsivity." Does that sound like anyone we know? A sample question: "I’ve always found it easy to convince people to do favors for me." Or how about, " Other people make so many stupid mistakes compared to me." 

I don't know about you, but I would happily take a person who struggles to identify the animals in the zoo as our nation's leader instead of one who would easily agree with the statement, " Some people just aren’t meant to succeed in life, and that’s not my problem."

Convicted felon. Demented? Maybe. Sociopath? Definitely.