Happy New Year

 And so we close out another year in our now weird normality. Yeah, weird is the new normal. I guess I really do not understand America any longer. I mean, you would think, after existing here for some 83 years, I would have some reasonable understanding of this place I call home.   I used to imagine that I was pretty much one of several norms here. Now, I believe I am on the outer fringe of a new planet called Exo-Amerika.

A crap star of a crappy TV series about no-talents, in which the crap star gets to fire the no-talents on the show is now President—tell me again why anyone on this planet watched that show? And he overcame all of the relatively experienced politicians in our land to become our President?  And he daily demonstrates his incapacity for even the most minor chores of that job.   He doesn’t understand even the most trivial parts of the Presidency, mainly, I assume, because he apparently cannot read. And because he cannot read, he is abysmally ignorant.

He uses Twitter because it is a techno-vehicle designed for people who can neither read nor write. It’s almost as though Twitter was designed expressly for Donald Trump. And that seems to be his sole communications vehicle.  When he gets up in front of an audience to speak, he just babbles incoherently.

He embarrasses us almost every hour of every day, to the point where our various news and pseudo-news (Fox & Friends) people no longer know how/whether to cover him. But because he is a “reality-TV star”, he demands daily/hourly TV coverage.  It’s all he really wants, so he keeps doing and saying monumentally stupid things to get their attention.

And he won’t/can’t change, because it is who he is.  He could get worse over time, say depressed when he begins to understand that even his pseudo-News folks think he’s an idiot. Then he will likely up the ante—say bomb someplace he doesn’t like (North Korea anyone??). It’s what we have to look forward to folks. How inspiring, how uplifting.

But on the positive side, we now understand the good Christian folks out there in EvangeLand.  There is no longer any surprises there. They clearly are telling us that they have no moral or ethical principles at all. They are in love with The Donald and he is as completely amoral as anyone on the planet. So their love affair tells us everything we need to know about them.  Nothing here folks; time to move on.

Perhaps as an antidote, I have begun reading an interesting book about the evolution of the mind. It is called  From Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel Dennett. It is a bit of a challenge in that it is no ordinary text about evolution. The author takes issue with almost everyone. Part of the challenge of the book is that he takes issue, or sides with various “others” while in the act of explaining his theses. So far, I have not yet advanced enough to summarize his main argument (I think actually he has too many arguments for me to ever summarize). So far, I am beginning to imagine that humans are simply one of millions of entities that are slowly adapting and, in some cases disappearing over millennia. We are rocks, or moss, or fish, or bacteria, or . . . We think we are more significant than we are, because it is us.  One reviewer concludes his analysis of the book with this:

“Civilisation, he reminds us, is a work in progress. It may die, returning the planet to the bacteria, or, if human sociality can transcend our current problems, it can thrive. The future is open.”

So, when I think about The Donald and his minions, I am drawn back to bacteria.  Everyone is trying to survive, even if at the expense of everything else on this planet.  Whether we survive as a species may well depend on our ability to transcend. But before we can transcend, we must comprehend. And that Sherlock is our current problem.

Happy New Year Everyone.

See you in 2018 . . . hopefully.