Welcome to 2024

So another year has passed us by. And the more I (thankfully) continue to age, the greater are the numbers of folks, whose names I recognize, who have passed into that Netherland called Death.  Yeah, that’s one of the real bummers of remaining alive—all the folks who don’t. I mean, Sandra Day O'Connor, Rosalyn Carter, Diane Feinstein, Jimmy Buffett, Tony Bennett, Alan Arkin . . . and the list goes on and on.

And then we have what used to be known as Politics.  Yeah, 2023 was quite a year for demonstrating the Decline and Fall of American Politics.  I have been at least aware of American politics and our government since maybe WW II, say the 1940s. FDR dominated that scene, but after Roosevelt, we had Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy (Ahhhhh), Johnson, and Nixon. And good old Ricardo, began a parade of characters, some good, some awful, but it was like we hit some rocky road of politicians. I mean, Ford was ok, and Jimmy Carter was briefly fine, but then he was abbreviated by that rascal Reagan (ugh). And then that idiot-malenfant George Bush, happily interrupted by Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama (a really, really smart Prez). But then the bottom dropped out and the republican party seemingly collapsed into a heap, replaced by some gangrenous, braindead political party, vaguely designated MAGAHeads. Happily Joe Biden kicked them out of the White House, but they have remained the official Party in Opposition (PIO). And ever since they lost, Fox News decided that the MAGAHeads deserved total wall-to-Wall “News” coverage.  And so, they never actually went away, and 2023 was filled from top to bottom with their news. Now, to be fair, a lot of the news about MAGAHeads was really news about new criminal indictments of their pseudo-leader, Donald J. Trump. He seemingly loves violating our criminal statutes. He rarely, if ever, pays his bills. He fails at all of his businesses. He fails at all of his personal adventures (marriages). His children practically shriek awfulness.

And yet, Americans take his make believe political candidacies seriously. Others who align themselves with politics on the Radical right side of the tracks—DeSantis, Haley, Christie, et al have to work really hard simply to continue trailing him.  Seemingly normal Americans declare they would vote for no one but the Trump. Really folks??? You’re not just pulling our chain, are you?

And many Americans think that Biden is just too old, and so they may not vote for him. Really folks??? You won’t vote for Joe cuz he’s old? But he actually still has a functioning brain, unlike his main opposition—the MAGAHead himself.  And if one examines America during 2023, it was not a bad year. There had been some inflation early on, but that seemed under control. Employment levels are good. Public investments that benefit the Middle Class are being made. He has been dealing with some pretty dicey foreign affairs, with Russia and Vlad the Impaler acting like Nazi Germany towards Ukraine, and Israel and Hamas killing one another with abandon.  There seemingly is no “Good side” in that region. Perhaps were we to ship off all of Hamas maybe to somewhere in the middle of the Saudi Desert, it might improve, but that ain’t gonna happen.

So, folks, if you think not voting is an option, then you are deciding to vote implicitly for Donald Trump. So, remember, in 2024, Not Voting is casting a vote for Trump.

And so we welcome our coming New Year. 2024 seems filled with promises of all kinds. But mainly I look on those promises as of the “Be Careful What You Wish For” kind.

Take care. Love your loved one. Be kind to strangers and, generally, to folks who seem in need. The world needs Kindness, Love, and Peace. Practice all. And Work Hard at whatever you do. 

Welcome to our New Year, 2024.

Life and Life

 With all the highly publicized killings going on in Gaza/Israel and in the Ukraine, I wondered about some recent talks officialdom has been holding about victim compensation. Like, if we kill 500 innocent civilians, including children, how much should we compensate the country?

So, what is human life worth? Is each life worth the cost of a case of beer?  Hmmm, tough one.

And then, after I arise early each morning, I trod downstairs and go outside to take a picture of the morning sunrise. And I accompany my picture, being posted on Facebook with, “Morning lovely. Be kind. Peace bro.” And then again, in the evening, as the sun commits itself to setting, I post another picture and write, “OK, It’s Time to Wine On. So Do It.”

But in between, an entire day of personal steps and events occurs. I look out the window and observe a bird at one of our feeders. Or our mailman stops by to drop off our daily mail and we chat briefly about his day and the events of that day.

And at some stage, I shove a toothbrush into my mouth and clean my teeth. But only after consuming some freshly brewed espresso, and a sliced mango. Or I go out into the garden with some clippers and snip off some unwanted plants in the garden.

Or I sit with a glass of wine, as we munch on some dinner while watching a British mystery, or comedy on our TV. And then, at some stage, we take off our night dress and climb into bed, and turn off the lights, as we both try to engage in that thing called Sleep.

See these are all little signs that we are not a case of beer, or some other commodity one may purchase at the corner store. We are living creatures. We breathe, we laugh, and sometimes we cry. And we think.  Yeah, that thinking thing. Something comes across your consciousness that today is December 7^th, and that springs a memory of that fateful day, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day. Yeah, we’re really old, so we have an actual memory locked inside our heads.

Life is really a series of large and small memory snippets. We do things, or observe things and they are then tucked away into our brains.  See that doesn’t happen to a case of beer. Humans and really all other living creatures are memory banks. So, when we decide to kill off a bunch of humans of varying ages, we are eliminating those memory banks. And the young ones especially are deprived of all those creative acts and that slowly building memory bank filled with good and bad images.  And we, the world at large are also deprived of the acts those living creatures might have created. As we shoot or bomb that 3-year old, maybe we are killing the next Van Gogh, or Shakespeare, and we will never get to understand what our act of killing actually accomplished.

Killing is a truly mindless act, because if we thought about the act, it would become near to impossible to carry out.  In Gaza, folks who identify with Hamas seem not to mind killing folks, as long as those folks are Israeli. See, they don’t care that they are stealing future life events from people who identify as Israeli. And so, they also, without proper understanding, create within those same Israelis the same sense of armor around the brains that will allow Israelis to do the same thing to Hamas humans.

But it isn’t just in Gaza. Some idiot in Nevada, followed on the heels of another idiot in Texas, or was it somewhere else in America (so many shootings, so little time), managed to shoot innocent humans who had done nothing except wander into the wrong place at the wrong time.  See, with guns at their easy disposal, angry humans continue to cut off the future lives of other humans, who will then no longer experience watching a sunrise or a glorious sunset.

Killing is so final and eliminates hundreds, even thousands of gestures of love.  Life is really quite amazing. I am now in my 88^th year of that thing we call life.  And I have thousands of tiny events registered within my brain. Event images embedded within me that might have gone unnoticed had I died earlier.  I may die, any day now. Who knows? But I also may live another set of days and weeks and even years, creating and observing small and large things that others in the world may also observe.

Why can we not commit to peace and love?  Why can we ban books but not guns? Amazing really.

Well friends, continue to think and try to observe life all around you. Think about what happens to you today, and think, “I am grateful for the good things in my life”.  Try to be happy. But at least, try to BE. And do your best to allow that person next to you also BE.

Why Are We Here?

 The older I become and the more I read, the more I wonder about origins and the why’s and wherefores’ of Life.  Specifically, I keep wondering why humans are here at all.  The most likely explanation, I know, is that we are all accidents of evolution.  That is, we began as sponges in some ocean and then began acquiring the genes that eventually gave rise to life forms, which in turn led to humans over millions of years.

But, more to the point, what, if anything is our purpose in being here?  I know the God seekers think that a spirit who seems to be in charge of all life, created humans especially as some kind of tribute, although a tribute to what I keep wondering. Does God in some way resemble humans, so that humans were created in God’s image?  Maybe so, but, if so, what might we make of such a trivial pursuit? God felt so inadequate that she had to create a human-form resembling her? And then, what, she created humans in all possible states of adequacy and behavioral patterns?

And now, we are left with Humans, many of whom seem to prefer killing as a hobby, or even a career choice.  I look around me at our current world and what do I see? Russia under that braindead human Vlad the Impaler, continuing to spend its money and its human resources trying to kill as many Ukrainians as possible.  And, then after a couple of years of that debacle, Hamas in Israeli-Land decides to move into action and kills 1400 Israeli innocents. But, really, everywhere I turn to see humans killing other humans. I need only turn around almost anywhere in America to find one or more Humans gunning down fellow American Humans, mostly all of the Innocent variety.

It seems almost anywhere you go (and there are exceptions I know) Humans appear to spend a lot of their time and energy trying to figure out ways to kill other humans. So am I to conclude that Humans are placed here explicitly to kill off other Humans?  I imagine that, eventually the Humans of the Killing variant will eventually graduate to the really big killing machines. I mean, think back to the mid 1940’s and Japan in that World War II killing game. Yeah, we were all getting really good at killing large numbers. But then we decided that rifles and bombs were mere playthings. So, we invented a really big killing device—the Atomic Bomb. And we tried them out in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  We apparently don’t really know, but estimates range between 100,000 and 200,000 Japanese Humans died as a result of the two bombings. So, two bombs and BANG, a hundred thousand or two are dead. That was so large that it actually caused the ending of that particular War.

But did it end all wars? Hahahahaha . . . no not even close.  Some estimates suggest that somewhere close to a half million Humans have died in the Middle East since the creation of Israel.  And remember, the killing machines associated with the Israeli-Middle East conflicts, also in turn produced the 911 attacks, which led in turn to more killing sprees all over the Middle East.

And we should never forget those World Wars, both I and II, where it is estimated that in the tens of millions of Humans died as a result.  See, I was born in the 1930s, and Humans have continued killing other Humans ever since, in non-stop killing sprees. And it wasn’t as though something happened to trigger those killing sprees. Nope, they have been going on ever since man acquired an understanding of how to kill other Humans.  It makes me wonder whether more sophisticated killing machines are the true end result of Human evolution, maybe even the true purpose of human evolution.

So, as I begin aging out (I am pushing on toward 89 after all) I have begun concluding that the main purpose of Humans and Human development is killing other Humans. Now, exactly why any God would choose that objective for its creatures is way beyond my Pay Grade.  It does sort of suggest to me, though, that a God is a pretty unlikely development instrument for Humans and other of our world creatures. More likely, way more likely, I would conclude that Human development is mostly accidental and is an example of evolution going seriously off course. And you know all this great fear about AI that has been growing of late? That AI might begin moving out of our control, and begin simply taking over from Humans? Well, maybe that is exactly what is going on, and that this disastrous developmental path on which Humans are proceeding, where we continue to improve our ability to kill off other Humans, may in fact be brought to an end finally by AI interventions.  Think of that. What a concept huh? Who knows, maybe AI will curtail Human Murder instincts and cause Humans to develop in some slightly more “civilized” manner. Wouldn’t that be nice? And would God be pleased, huh? She might be smiling down on us as we consider how to end AI. Funny, Huh?

Tata Humans . . . think hard about all this.  It’s time for a change.

Beginnings and Endings

The older I become, the more interesting is the question of Beginnings, or Beginning. I realize that we know a lot about both beginnings and endings. We see humans being born and then dying. And we see plant beginnings and endings all around us. And then there are all the other animals that come into our lives and then leave us, a bit sadder, even after a fairly full life.

And I have speculated fairly repeatedly about my view of human endings. That is, although we use language that implies a journey (they “left us” . . . “they are gone”) the only evidence we have suggests only cessation. When humans die, they simply cease to function. Their brains cease operating and thus nothing follows. And it would seem that is the only sensible description for all “life forms”, i.e. all animals, and all plant life, which really means all life forms.  Material forms, rocks, mountains, even planets, stars, seem to come into existence and then cease to exist in that form. Whether a star, or a mountain can be said to experience “life” would be questionable, since we currently have no way to communicate with such seemingly inanimate entities.

But back to beginnings. Yes, we see them all the time. So, we understand that humans are created, exist in a known form and function according to certain rules.  We can even trace animal life back to fairly early beginnings, say a billion years. Oddly, sponges are listed as among the early life developers.

But this complex life development is but one tracing within our overall universe of life forms and other creatures, like planets and suns.  The universe is an amazing place, and unbelievably complex. And it always brings me back to origin questions. Folks like Neil DeGrasse Tyson spend their lives investigating and then describing the early development of our universe.  And others, those of a religious persuasion, employ other less rigorous descriptive approaches. See Neil and his BFFs spend their time trying to move us back in time so as to better understand the actual origins of life. Our religious folks I guess gave up on that game fairly early.  From their perspective, a God decided to, I don’t know, wave a wand and thereby create life.  They have some pretty silly stories, like Adam and Eve that can’t withstand too many questions. Still, at some stage, according to them there was no life, and then life was formed.

Now, whatever one thinks of the religious origins' tale, when compared with Tyson’s, my mind continues to wander back in time and always arrives at the question, “If there is/was a God, Who/What created that God?  Even if I follow Tyson back further into the origin story, I arrive at the same question. How did anything develop? Go back to before the Big Bang. Something existed then and led to The Big Bang. Who/What created that something?  Was it God? But, if so, Who/What created God?

See, if God always existed, why not the universe? And if so, How/Why?

And if humans had decided on a God, and simply left it at that, then good. Why Not? But then humans had to decide how best to use that story. And so, humans invented the Tale. You know, God created everything, and, especially, created humans so as to . . . to what? So as to worship God? How vain a God would that be? And then came the tales about Death leading to human forms sitting up on clouds looking down on we still-living critters. So, apparently, we have billions of entities (no bodies, just disembodied “souls” wandering about up above us, watching our foolishness play out daily.

And we humans actually have built whole stories and vast, complex entities called churches and interpreters called priests, who tell us what to do. How crazy is that? Folks who have no clue are allowed to tell us how to live nicely. Now, mostly, we ignore all those rules, because we seem to prefer creating our own rules of living and control. We even seem to prefer killing other humans, as a form of either sport or simply a way of expressing our disgust with how life actually turned out.

And largely, we seem to have moved beyond the God-tales, and have settled on Money-Tales. Oh we still pretend to the God-thingie. Because it remains a really useful way to maintain control over other humans.  See, we create priests who pretend to know about origins and the God thing. And then other humans place themselves into positions of control over the priests, so that they can retain total control over the humans.

Oddly, this system that might have led to peace and kindness over all of humankind, instead seems to have led to destruction and inhumane controls.  Could we change that? Sure, but first we would have to decide that we did not need a God, or those folks who pretend to know/understand God.  Humans are perfectly capable of organizing peacefully and humanely, should we ever decide that was a preferable course to inhumane methods.  Of course, that might suggest that we stop killing one another. And that would be really hard for humans. We do so seem to like killing.  It’s almost as though our Gods are watching us play out a sort of Godly TV game. Peace might just be too boring to Gods.

Ah well, back to daydreaming about origins, I guess.  It’s easier than the alternatives. How about, just be nice to your neighbors. 

America At Its End

Apparently there are no longer any consequences for political actions.  We note this especially when we view republicans . And it is not that Democrats are without fault. No, but something different has occurred since Trump became their glory leader. Somehow, it is as though he erased all normal standards of human behavior, and, as a result, a different class of republicans emerged. I mean, look at the list – Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Josh Hawley, George Santos, Matt Gaetz. And now this total cretin Mike Johnson, newly christened Speaker of the House. How is he even possible? He seems to violate every principle of ordinary citizenry. Mainly, I guess, it is his devotion to Christian Autocracy that stands out. But it is almost as though he has no functioning brain.

And now, when we need intelligent leadership at all levels, it has evaporated among republicans. And they continue to make light of Joe Biden. Yet Joe Biden keeps on trying to maintain a course of decency. He continues to make every effort to promote democracy at home, and has managed to create an economy that exceeds anything we have seen in years.  Biden continues to support Ukraine against an ongoing murderous Russian invasion.  And with the Hamas killings against Israel, Biden continues to support Israel, however difficult Bibi makes such support.  As awful as it seems, the Arab militants seem to have created a Nazi-like figure in Bibi. I know, I know, that is an awful thing to say, but Bibi seems to be a different kind of Israeli—way more manic in his zeal to destroy his Arab opposition.  But, to be fair, the Arabs seem to relish in their own zeal to deal stupidly and murderously with Israel.

But Joe Biden, has continued to perform reasonably in the face of this increasingly global insanity.

He could use some help from his republican colleagues. Instead, the republican party has simply gone off the deep end into some new kind of political craziness.  I don’t understand when sanity will return to Republican Land, but maybe never, and that could begin to define the end of America. Seriously, were I 30 rather than 88, I might well now be preparing to move with my family to another Land—anyone for New Zealand? Only if the republican party begins to regain its sanity by removing Johnson and bringing back a new core of civil intelligence would I change my mind.  And removing Johnson is but the first step. Greene, Boebert, Santos, et al need to be removed also.  But that might require the assistance of the American voting public. And perhaps that is a feat beyond American capability. Anyone for New Zealand???

America the Forlorn

 Many folks in America are becoming outraged, or worse, because of the actions of the various “leaders” in our political system, but especially the republicans. The list of corrupt, or ignorant politicos is long and seems to grow daily. Kevin McCarthy was near the top of the idiot-list, until bigger idiots decided to toss him aside. Gaetz, McConnell, Green, Boebert, Hawley, Jordan, the list goes on and on and grows daily.  Their latest faux pas was tossing McCarthy aside after it took them 15 tries to elevate him to the Speaker position.  Oddly, although they all seem to want to be elevated to high political positions within Congress, they don’t seem to have anything they want to do, in the way of legislative actions that might benefit the American people.

Ever since Trump was tossed aside by the American people, republicans seem to be diving into some canyon of darkness, in which they are either to just die, or to vote on some bill that will help to destroy the lives of ordinary Americans. And every time Biden does something to benefit America, the republicans become catatonic.

And the reporting on all this chaos keeps pointing out the foibles of various pseudoleaders within the party, or the latest corrupt actions by that dude, The Donald of Trumpland.  But I do not see much in the way of reporting on the people of America.  We seem not to want to recognize the role of ordinary Americans in elevating the idiot-malenfants of our country into positions in which they can bring chaos into our lives.

The very fact that, after all he has said and done, there remain Americans who still support Donald Trump and . . . . and, wish to re-elevate him into that position called President of the United States, is to me both amazing and sad. We have begun to talk about the final destruction of that American dream, our Nation.  That we seem headed into a canyon of despair seems obvious. But we need to stop blaming simply our corrupt, inept leaders. That the American people, having heard everything The Donald is and does, still want him as President, tells me more about our people than perhaps I ever wanted to know.  It is now the case that, were I 30, or maybe even 40, I would be searching the globe for some other Nation to which I might migrate. I think I now understand fully why so many people, including my own grandparents, decided that their own countries were inadequate and so they had to leave for another Land  . . . in this case America, the America of the 19^th century.

But that America has now slipped away. It is a Land no longer in existence. America has become some other failed state. I keep thinking we are in some version of 1930s Germany. The Germans surely knew who Hitler was, but they elevated him anyway. Nazi Germany wasn’t created by some gods up in heaven. It was created by the German people, and just as surely, the American people are busily creating this America of TrumpLand, a place where corruption, ineptitude, and immorality flourish. Yes, I know it is not all Americans, but there are enough of them, and enough who vote, that they are elevating the criminal segment of our society into positions whereby they can lead our Nation.  Maybe the good folks of America, and there are still good folks, cannot be bothered to go to the polls and vote—too much trouble. And so those folks are being blessed with criminal leaders.

So, you may blame Donald Trump and his minions all you wish for the increasing mess in which we find ourselves.  But the major blame must be laid right at the feet of the American people who, knowing exactly who Donald is, continue to applaud him and his gang of thieves. If America falters and finally converts into some Land of ne’er-do-wells, it will be the American people who created that disaster.

So, America, unless you wish to destroy America, get off your asses, vote out the idiot-malenfants, and allow decency back into our Land. Only then can you look again at that Lady Liberty in the Harbor of New York and feel blessed to be an American.

Poised at the Edge

 It’s getting hard to write. I no longer know what to say about life in America.

On the one hand, as we are aging in place, Carol and I remain in reasonable health and are constantly surrounded by loving wishes from friends and family.

On the other hand, there exists in full charge, a world of America I know longer recognize as American.  Although I never lived there, I keep thinking of Germany during the 1930s, when ordinary Germans elected Adolph Hitler. Did they understand what they were doing? Were they really that angry?

And are Americans so angry that they will elect somehow the likes of Donald Trump? I mean he is under dozens of criminal indictments and, if we allow the courts to proceed, he will likely be convicted and then sentenced to live in prison for the rest of his natural life. But then we have his republican supporters, who have begun throwing out threats to life and limb to those participating in these various pursuits of justice. Rep Jordan threatening the Georgia prosecutors, and he is but one of many. That January 6^th violence did not spring from nowhere. Republican abound in violence.  And there are apparently no “normal” republicans any longer. And what do I mean by “normal”? Well, I mean people who understand and believe in the rule of law and the American Constitution. They used to be people who were opposed to fascism/Nazism. Remember, Dwight Eisenhower, that dude who was a general during WW II and then served honorably as US President? Yeah, him. Well, turns out, he was a republican. Yep, I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.  I think, for heaven’s sake, as awful as he might have been in my eyes, even Ronald Reagan would not understand this crew of today’s republicans. Imagine Reagan trying to understand Donald Trump. Or, worse yet, imagine a dinner party with Ronald Reagan, at one end of the table, Dwight Eisenhower at the other hand, and in the middle, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley, and a half dozen other GOP Federal wannabees, like DeSantis.  Imagine that. I imagine the two at the table heads baffled, stunned even to listen to the idiot-malenfants at the table.

So, yeah, me, a mere libtard, I’m baffled. I don’t understand what I am witnessing. At this magic age of 88, I am actually contemplating in my head, where I should consider migrating. America seems actually headed towards oblivion, in the Germany-1936 sense. I think we may be at a not-so-early stage of national destruction. And then I think of grandchildren and even great grandchildren. What are we leaving to them? I still remember sitting in our front room during the 1940s, listening to the radio, and even hearing FDR occasionally on that radio telling us about the war.  Things seems grim, but my faith in America stayed strong. We would defeat those Nazi’s, I knew. Today, I am no longer so certain.  I listen still, but now I hear idiots like Jim Jordan threaten people because they are trying to maintain law and order in a country wherein Donald Trump is trying just as hard to move us back to 1930s Germany. And then Marjorie Taylor Green tells us all about Jewish space lasers.

So, David Brooks, where are you when we need you?  Where are all the republican intellectuals, telling their “conservative” followers to oppose GOP fascism? Where are you guys?? We need you.  The hordes of American pseudo-fascists need you to help them recover and return to sanity and to a civilized life. America is waiting, poised at the edge of a nearby cliff.  Do we head over, or will we turn around and return to civilized life? I think it may be in your hands. So do not fail us.

Endings 101

Recently, three of my friends have departed, and by that I mean they have died. But see our language and our imagination prevent us from saying simply “they died”.  Instead, we have invented this massive tale about what happens after we die. I guess, depending on how far away from reality we live in our minds, we believe different things. Many, many folks say, after someone dies, that they are now watching us from up above, that is, the person is now sitting on a cloud somewhere up above us and observing us.  Now that is just too weird, but it remains fairly common.

I have now reached a magic age—88+. In December, I will reach 89 years.  Yes, I climbed aboard this thing we call life on December 17^th, in the year 1934. Until recently, I was just cruising along like everyone else.  Then one day I realized that I had already surpassed in life years everyone of whom I am aware in my immediate family. That is, no one known to me as family has ever made it this many years.  A few came close, i.e., 85 years, but none, to my knowledge hit the upper 80s, or even 90.

And so, I am now looking at “life” a little differently. I understand that I may make it til 90, or, hopefully, even higher in years.  But I also understand that each day is special, a gift if you will.  And when a friend passes on, ceases to exist, I am saddened and sometimes shocked.  Recently, an especially close friend, George Stiles, died—bang out of the blue. We had just been trying to call him because we had not seen him in a while and he often stayed with us a day or two enroute to one of his kids.  And we failed to make contact by phone. So we thought maybe we just had an old telephone number, so I looked him up on the Internet, and what to my wondering eyes did appear but, “An Obituary for George Stiles”.  First, I thought, “no, it’s someone else”. But then I looked at the picture and, Yep, it was our dear friend George.

It was a shock. We could no longer speak with George. And then another reality came into my brain. George no longer exists. That is, his brain has ceased functioning, and so he no longer exists. And we can’t use these terms like, “he is gone”, or “George has departed”, or “oh my George has left us”.  And why can I not think those thoughts? Well, because, the reality of death is that the person who dies actually ceases to exist, because his brain stops functioning.  He is “dead” but he does not know he is dead, because he does not any longer “know” anything.

And, although I knew that, suddenly, with George, that reality set into my brain. Yeah, when I die, I will no longer know anything, including that I am dead. I will simply go dark, but I will not even know that everything just went dark.  No, but what will that be like? Well, nothing. Yeah, when life ceases, we do not know that life has just ceased. And that isn’t like anything that we have known throughout our long lives.

So, now, daily, I am aware of life and life things differently. When I look at a lantana flower or an hibiscus flower and then observe some critter on that flower, I watch it carefully. That life form is special because I am observing it. And it isn’t that I am now depressed thinking about life terminating. Oh I know it will and I have at least a dim understanding about cessation, but one can only dimly understand this end of life thing. Mainly, because there is nothing to understand. You are aware one second and the next you are not aware. And that is it. There is nothing else to understand.  Now we could, I assume argue about whether my conclusion is accurate, but such arguments are pointless, because we can never shed any light through evidence on the subject. So, you are free to believe the cloud thing, and I am free to believe the ending thing.  Why anyone argues about such things is quite beyond my comprehension, unless one belief gives someone control over another by that belief. Oh and that would be called religion, huh? OK, believe on folks. It’s all up to you. Whatever turns you on.

Life Goes On

 Ahhh, the weather just shifted to humane. Suddenly, it’s ok to open the windows, instead of sitting inside in fear that the heavy rain will flood the basement.  It has not done so in quite a while, But worry I will. Maybe it’s my age. I am getting on there—approaching 89 in December.

But more than the weather, was recent news of two friends and colleagues who just passed on, both a bit younger than me.  And both passed peacefully, but suddenly.  George Stiles was a colleague who became a friend, then practically a member of our family. I met George during the 1970s in the course of my work.  Then he was more than helpful to our daughter’s quest to gain entry into the world of UNC-Chapel Hill. And then George became a friend of long-standing. We saw him with some frequency as he rotated from his family home in Yarmouth, Maine to Philadelphia and South Carolina where his kids lived. George became part of our family.

And then, without warning, he died, peacefully we are told. But it is a shock nonetheless.

And then, my old boss and colleague Joe Wholey died. I was in a bit of a mess career-wise in the early 1970s, having left a secure job at Peat, Marwick, Livingston for a small firm that then collapsed. Through Joe, I managed to get a secure position at The Urban Institute, where I worked in the field of evaluation of health care programs. After five years, Joe left to join the Carter Administration, running an evaluation office in the Department of Health Education and Welfare. Joe asked me to join him, which I did. But then, Ronald Reagan took the presidency and we all had to cope with his administration. I managed for five years, but then grew fearful that I might become brain-dead working under Reagan. So, I left, as did Joe Wholey before me.

And now Joe has left this world.

And I remain behind to continue thinking about these truly good humans.

But it all brings to mind aging, and watching people drop all around me. Not just people with whom I am friends, but people of whom I am aware. We watch a lot of British TV, and especially one program that brings us to laughter even now. It is a show called “Are You Being Served?” It was on From 1972 to 1985.  I discovered recently that all of the acting cast had now died and they varied in age during that show.  So, now we find ourselves watching and loving a TV comedy series in which none of the acting cast remains alive.  I know, I know, it’s a TV show. Time passes, people age and then they die. And meanwhile I sit here, aging in place.

But then, look, our President is 81. And that idiot-malenfant Donald Trump is in his 70s, and poised to die. So, everyone is “aging in place.” But hey, they’re running our country. Well, technically, Joe Biden is running our country while Donald Trump is trying desperately to destroy our country. Two sides of the same coin I guess.

Well, I guess I will just have to suck it up and keep on truck’n. It ain’t my time yet, even if it is Mitch’s.

Meanwhile, my wonderful wife of 68 years tolerates me and loves and feeds me daily. And my kids, grandkids and Great grandkids continue to embrace life and to being me joy.  So, there you have it. Keep out of trouble and get on with this thing called LIFE.

It’s really all we have, isn’t it?

The Beginning of The End

 I titled a journal of 2020 blog postings, “The Beginning of the End, or The End of the Beginning”.  But the more I read about the two subjects, the more convinced I become that we are truly at the Beginning of the End. The End of What you might ask? Well, the Beginning of the End of the World, I might reply.

Every day now, I read about some new Climate Change fact. A scientist is predicting that the Southwest US might hit 150 degrees in the near future. And another doctor was speaking of treating someone who fell on a sidewalk, and the sidewalk temperature was so hot that he was actually Burned, and required burn treatment. And that made me even wonder about doing something simple, like taking your dog for a walk, and the dog’s feet becoming burned or the dog simply ran away from the walkway because it was simply too hot.

And then the waterways around the Florida coastline rose above 100 degrees. So, what does that do to the sea life?

And all of the predictions suggest that these seemingly drastic daily temperatures were actually cooler than we may ever see again during this season.  From the New York Times:

“Last month, the planet experienced its hottest June since records began in 1850. July 6 was its hottest day. And the odds are rising that 2023 will end up displacing 2016 as the hottest year. At the moment, the eight warmest years on the books are the past eight.

“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future,” Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement. “The need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is more urgent than ever before.”

The world has entered what forecasters warn could be a multiyear period of exceptional warmth, one in which the warming effects of humankind’s continuing emissions of heat-trapping gases are compounded by El Niño, the recurring climate pattern typically associated with hotter conditions in many regions.”

So, Climate Change is here. The Climate HAS CHANGED. It is no longer arguable.

But then what do I read? Well, the Republican Party is not so sure. Yep, that’s right. In the middle of a catastrophic global climate crisis, the republicans seem to be imagining that Biden’s Impeachment would easily Trump Climate Change. Yeah, why would we wish to actually do anything to defer the worst effects of climate change? Well, for one thing, then we would have to acknowledge we were wrong and Climate Change is real. And republicans no longer do that—acknowledge errors.  No, but my next guess is that, for their next move, they will acknowledge Climate Change, but blame it all on Biden and the Dems.  Yeah, if only Joe had been paying attention when the scientists told him that industrial carbon emissions were a major cause of Climate Change.  But instead, Joe was going full time on Trump, and inventing stories about him, and so was way too busy to devote any energy to Climate Change.  So, it’s all Joe Biden’s fault.

And I sit here watching this growing crisis as I continue aging out of existence. Yeah, at 88, I watch all this with even more sense of terror than were I only thinking of my own age-related demise.  Lots of stuff goes on in your head when you suddenly enter your late 80s, 88 in my case.  Seems as though every time I open a news article, it begins telling me about someone I know who has just passed into the Netherland.  Sometimes it’s even broader. Carol and I watch routinely reruns of a British show called “Are You Being Served?” It ran many years ago and the series was on the air between 1972 and 1985. Turns out everyone on the show has now passed away. And at least some on the show were “young” (now to be fair, they were “young” sometime in the 1972-1985 period). Still, we continue to watch this program, where everyone has now passed on. Hmmm, that’s weird.

So this Death thing seems all around us.  When I was young, people periodically passed on. But then after a period of sadness, that was over and we went back to normal life.  Now, we seem surrounded. And added to that perception, this Climate thing has begun weighing in. It’s now a new element. And storms are more ominous, because they bring more destruction, real or imagined with them.  A whole new era seems upon us, and that new era is not promising, for our entire globe.

So, republican stupidity is just one added element in this new doomsland era we seem to have entered.  To be fair, given my mindset about the Climate Doomsday, republicans seem almost irrelevant. Like they really have passed on and are merely one more poisonous element in our threatened globe.

I wish I could break out of this messy thinking process. But instead, daily, it grows worse. Mainly because I’m old and will likely soon die anyway. But also, even if I escape for a while, it merely gives me more time to watch the gradual disintegration of our entire planet. And republicans are simply bit players in their own doomsday play, a charade of life’s evil playmakers. So play on all you idiot republicans. You are playing to an audience of idiot-malenfants, who will soon disappear from the planet anyway. 

---

 [Ma1]

Traveling is Good

Ahhh, the 4^th, the 4^th. Thinking back, on July 4^th, 1955, we had been married for two days, and we were now aboard a flight on an airline now extinct. I thought it was World Airways, but I can no longer find a reference to such a name. At any rate, it was a prop passenger plane that flew us from LaGuardia Airport in New York to San Francisco in 14 hours. I think it stopped 6 times. We left New York around Midnight, arriving in San Francisco in midafternoon. Say 1-2 PM California time.  Ah, those were the days.  There were of course no jet planes in that era. So most flights were longish.  This flight was Carol and my first time aboard an airline. Oh I had traveled from coast to coast several times.  For my first, I took a Greyhound bus that took me 4 days. But I traveled several times thereafter. But we students devised a slightly different method of traveling from coast to coast. We would find someone who wanted a car driven across the country. Sometimes it was another student who wanted some help driving and we would drive with two people in the front seats and one snoozing on the back seat. Once, we drove the whole way (3000 odd miles) in 79 hours.

So that plane trip was a bit of a stunner. Imagine being aboard a vehicle that left the ground and moved in the open air.  Wow, what a concept.  But just when you imagine that a 14 hour flight was really long, I have to remember our flight from LA to Sydney in 2001, which was just over 15 hours, not counting the six hours it took to get to LA from the East Coast.

Oh, traveling has been such fun.  And I need to remember my childhood, where, until I was 18, I had never traveled more than about ten miles from my home base in New York City.  We didn’t even own a car, nor did so many of our New York City counterparts.  Who needed a car when you never went anywhere beyond a couple of miles away from home base, and buses and subways were so readily available? Our standard Sunday afternoon travels were a subway from Second Avenue Manhattan to Jerome Avenue, the Bronx.  Cars?? I think not.

But that flight with the two of us from LaGuardia to San Francisco began our life pattern of serious traveling by car, plane or train.  I am always a bit surprised at how we turned into world travelers, given our stunted early travel days, where neither of us had ever traveled more than maybe ten miles from our home base.

At the end of our first year of marriage, we were faced with the chore of moving to the LA region, since my first job out of Stanford was as a flight test engineer with the Firestone Guided Missile Division in downtown LA. We moved to Garden Grove, a little place 26 miles away from my work in LA.  And during that first year, we didn’t move about much, as we explored the smoggy world of the LA region. Oddly, we lived there six months before we discovered that, when the smog cleared a bit, you could actually see mountains.  I think that might be when we decided that perhaps the LA region was not really where we would choose to work and play for our new married lives.  And so we moved back up to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I began working with Lockheed on the Polaris missile.

Now there, we had some family. My mom lived there and my sis and her family.  So, we only traveled a bit in California, mainly to places like Lake Tahoe. But then, after six years at Lockheed, I joined a consulting firm doing planning work for the Air Force to help plan and control the development of the Minuteman Missile. In that job I traveled extensively, while my wife and kids enjoyed life in downtown San Francisco. So, I got to see much of the country, while my family stayed home. But then my boss called to ask me whether I would be interested in moving to a new gig in New Delhi, India. We had just received a contract to send four consultants to India, to work with the Planning Commission on planning new large public sector projects. I asked my wife and she said, “sure, why not?”

And so our serious traveling began in earnest. Through that opening, we traveled to India, but it was as though the world of global travel was now open. We visited over 30 countries. After we returned four years later, we traveled more about America.

And so what, right? Well, one of the things we have learned with all this traveling, is that folks are different everywhere you go, but also, they are the same. Human beings react in similar ways. Whether you are white or black, or any of the other colors we humans don, we remain humans. Depending on how we are raised and with whom we interact, we may react to stimuli differently. I guess that’s how racists arrive at that dreadful status. But not everyone is a racist as it turns out.  We all need certain stimuli, we all need to eat and we all need to consume water. We also, all need love and friendship. It all depends on what we focus on and when that determines how we look to other folks.  But key here is that the people who live in China, or Bolivia, or Thailand or Wyoming all have similar needs. Arguably, they could all be great friends, if they would only let that happen.

So try folks. Try love before hate. It works better for all of us.

Organized Fakery

 The world in which we live is chockerblock filled with Fake News. Surely, Fox, The Faux News Network leads the parade, although they are not alone, as the right wing in America (what used to be known as the Republican Party) is filling up our Land with Fake News outlets, for example One America News, an extreme right wing news outlet founded by Robert Herring of Herring Network, Inc. And the list goes on and on.

But, to be fair, if you aren’t extreme right wing and still want news that is unbiased, you need not listen to/watch Fox and the other dregs like OAN.  You can listen to your news on PBS, or even MSNBC or the other main network news outlets. They may lean one way or another depending on which host they are using at the moment, but still they are not bouncing off the walls of right wing lies, like Fox. I still have difficulty understanding why any thinking person listens to/watches Fox News.  Regardless of whether you voted for Trump or Biden, would you not prefer gaining facts through your news outlets, rather than flat-out lies? Rupert Murdoch has so corrupted our landscape that he really should be forever banished from our Land, and from the Lands of any Nation that wishes to lead a relatively normal National viewpoint.   I mean, Oz, how can you stand that cretin? And he pretends to Australian Nationhood. How did you allow that to happen?

But we go on, day by day. And we listen to Donald Trump and his Fascist political Party, promoted by the likes of Fox News.  And we laugh when Stephen Colbert uses some element of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make believe that Donald Trump is even more outrageously stupid (but funny) than we might have imagined.  But his AI fakeries are promoted simply as laugh pieces, known to be only partly true (he really did say that he could go out on 5^th Avenue, shoot someone and his poll numbers would rise).

But in conversations with a number of people, who are more steeped in the world of AI than me (because they use it to create AI pieces for TV) I am beginning to wonder, in dismay, just when it will be when we (I) can no longer tell when some news piece produced using AI is real or a fake. And when we can no longer tell, what will we do then?

Just imagine a Donald Trump (or a Marjorie Taylor Greene) who has a fully competent AI system at their disposal.  And they then begin producing fake news elements and finding ways to slip them into all the various news outlets.  Now if such things came into real news outlets like PBS, or CBS, or MSNBC, would we be able to tell whether what we were watching was real or fake?  Now, to be fair, if the source were known to be Donald, or MTG, then we would likely dismiss it. But supposing the source was unknown? And the item showed a Democratic President, Kamala Harris for instance, saying or doing something awful or simply compromising to our future? What then?

I am told that this kind of dystopian future is now within our grasp. It is not off 50-100 years in the future, but more like 5 years. And are we ready for such a future? Hmmm, No. See, in olden days, before our government was made by the right wing to seem completely unreliable, we might have actually asked our government to help, maybe to weigh in on such Fake News events and declare them Fake.  But now, with Fox News and others of that ilk working daily to destroy our government’s credibility, what will we do?

This possibility has me truly baffled, mainly because then, we mighty simply not know any longer whether something we were watching was real or a fake. So maybe, we will need to produce some substitute for video news. But, right now, I cannot imagine what that might be.  Everything is LIVE? Seems extreme, but might be necessary.  Could we trust anyone any longer? If not, how do we operate a Nation-State? See, sometimes it seems as though the right wing does not want to operate a Nation State, but I think that is not the case. I think they only wish to operate a Nation-State if it is their own Nation-State, i.e., one operated by Donald Trump, or others of his ilk. But the rest of us would obviously not trust such a State. So, what then? Two states??? A Red State of TrumpLand and a Blue state of ordinary, mostly honest people. To be preceded by a Civil War? Well, we hope not, but that is the direction in which we are being dragged by our right wing citizenry. So, let us hope for a saner, more civilized solution. Voting?? Well, will voting somehow avoid/correct the AI nightmare future scenarios?  Who knows? Not even the Shadow knows.

Memorial

 

So, today, we celebrate Memorial Day, a Day to honor our men and women who have died in the service of protecting our Nation. Being a bit older than most of you, I still remember that Day as Decoration Day, its original name because it was a Day when people would honor our War dead by decorating their graves with flowers.

The origins of that Day are greatly mixed with America’s Race arguments. One of the earliest celebrations involved freed Black men and women honoring the War dead who had been responsible for freeing them.  The Nation moved from that more limited memorial to one that honors all of our War dead, those men and women who died serving the Nation, especially in our many times of War.  And think of that. Just since I have been alive, we have experienced World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and those seemingly never-ending Middle East conflicts, even if they are not properly called Wars.

Apparently, Humans of all kinds prefer resolving their conflicts by shooting at the “Other Side”.  And again, apparently, that has transferred in America into a Love of Guns and just shooting people generally, even if we don’t know those people.

Our World today seems to sit on the edge of a precipice, as we sit pointing guns and hating people generally.  So many people, so little time.  At one point, in my now long life, I still remember living on the edge of oblivion. America and the Soviet Union, both armed with nuclear weapons pointed at the other, were practically drooling at the prospect of letting loose those thousands of Death missiles. The world’s problem, and our problem more specifically, was that, should we loosen those weapons and send them on their way, the Russians would do the same, and then we would all disappear into a nuclear emptiness, where no humans continued to exist.  I was working at Lockheed at the time. The Lockheed Missiles and Space Company was hard at work, as was I, on designing and building the Polaris, submarine-launched ballistic missile. It was a fearsome thing. Each submarine could hold 16 missiles, each of which could deliver, in turn, three independently targetable nuclear delivery vehicles.  The missiles could be fired while the submarine was submerged.

But it was a while in development. In 1957, when the Russians launched SPUTNIK successfully, we were still in the early development stages of designing and building Polaris.  And our anxiety leaped up after the Soviets were successful. Now, to be fair, SPUTNIK was a satellite, not an ICBM. But it made very clear that Soviet technology had suddenly leaped ahead of ours.  And I still remember in that dark, cold period, beginning to feel actually threatened. Our President, Dwight Eisenhower, told the American people that we had entered a new era. The level of threat I perceived was sufficiently real that I experienced serious fears.  But our work went on, even if not without glitches.  Among the glitches, were our experiences blowing up our missile over Cape Canaveral. We nicknamed our Polaris developmental missile as “The Snake Killer”, because of its unfortunate habit of blowing up soon after launch, thereby spewing flaming solid propellant all over the Cape’s grassy launch area, thereby killing all snakes and other mammals in that area.

And so, we went on developing our horror machines, while the Soviets were doing the same.  And that “Cold War” continued with Hate spewing at each of the contestants, mainly America and Russia.

Eventually, of course, both of us acquired the technical capability of totally destroying the other side.  And each crisis seemed to generate its own anxiety level. I vividly remember that nasty Cuban Missile Crisis.

From a reference text:

October 16-28 marks the anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an anxious period during the Cold War in which the two superpowers—The United States and the Soviet Union—stood on the brink of a nuclear war. Just 17 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a stark warning of the devastating consequences of launching a nuclear warhead, fear of nuclear conflict was at America’s doorstep. Over the course of 13 days, the world avoided nuclear catastrophe through shrewd diplomacy and sheer luck.

October 16, 1962: US National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy briefed President John F. Kennedy on evidence that the Soviets were constructing nuclear missile sites in Cuba, just 90 miles from US territory. Earlier that year, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had reached a secret agreement with Cuban leader Fidel Castro after the island experienced a failed US attempt to overthrow his government.

President Kennedy met with a group of trusted advisers to discuss options. This group would meet daily during the crisis and later be named the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExComm.  Two main options emerged: destroying the Soviet missile sites with air strikes, or establishing a naval blockade to cut off Soviet shipments of additional materials to Cuba.

October 20, 1962: Following days of meetings, including one with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko, Kennedy decided on a naval blockade.

October 22, 1962: Kennedy addressed the American public, revealing the news of Soviet moves in Cuba and announcing the US establishment of naval quarantine until the Soviets dismantled the missile sites. He also sent a letter to Khruschev, warning him of deliberately plunging the world into war, which it is crystal clear no country could win and which could only result in catastrophic consequences to the whole world, including the aggressor.

October 23, 1962: US ships moved into place around Cuba. Soviet freighters bringing supplies to the island moved into the area, but ultimately altered course, or stopped in their place.

October 25, 1962: Soviet freighters turned back toward Europe, but a commercial oil tanker—The Bucharest-- continued towards Cuba. The US allowed the Bucharest to pass through the blockade, without search, after the Navy was satisfied it was carrying petroleum.

October 26, 1962: As work on the missile sites continued, Castro requested Khrushchev to launch a nuclear first strike against the US. This never happened. Instead, then Soviet leader sent a letter to President Kennedy suggesting a way to resolve the conflict: the Soviets would remove the missiles in exchange for a US pledge not to invade Cuba.

Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, played a crucial role in diplomatic efforts, meeting with Russian Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin who likened the Soviet buildup in Cuba to the US nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey. AG Kennedy informed Dobrynin that the United States was ready to discuss the issue as part of a potential agreement to end the crisis.

And talk about nervous mind-blowing. Yes, we were all biting our nails, because this one could be “The One”.  Happily, everyone backed off. Perhaps visions of Hiroshima danced in their heads, as they did mine.  I don’t know if I have ever been that frightened. But we all kept on truck’n, designing and building our Polaris.

And now we fast forward to our present 2023. What we have now is a new way to reconsider WAR. Only now, we are simply and collectively trying to think of new ways to live our lives as we move towards the next Presidential election.  And on one side we have the Democratic party trying to figure out how best to support our President, Joe Biden. On the other side, we have a new Republican Party—“new” because republicans broadly have killed of that party of Eisenhower. I personally am no longer sure what this newly incarnated political party wants, aside from, obviously, political power. They wish to be in charge, apparently so they can cut taxes of their wealthy supporters, reduce all benefits to middle and lower class citizens (including, apparently, Social Security) and take action against Women, people of color, the LGBTQ folks, and any and all migrants here or wishing to be here. They most now remind me of those folks in 1936 Germany, working with and supporting Adolph Hitler.

Seemingly each day brings us some new form of anti-democracy movement by the current pseudo-Republicans. And their continued siege against America makes me want to throw up, and returns me to those nervous days of the 1960s. America may not survive this constant barrage of fascist attacks from our right wing. They may succeed in doing what the Soviet Sputnik crowd could not. Indeed, I find myself thinking seriously about where I might be considering migrating, were I much younger. New Zealand anyone?

But I am old now. In under two years, I shall be 90, and married for 70 years. Those are good things I know, to be celebrated. But simultaneously, our Nation seems to be fracturing into a new form of Civil War.

But in the meantime, happily we still continue to find some way to honor our War dead. So, YES, Decoration Day continues and we should all find some way to honor those men and women who died trying to help our Nation survive the threats from within and Without.

So, Thank you Veterans, Men and Women alike. You, at least continue to make our Nation proud.  Again, THANK YOU.

May 8, VE Day, 1945

It was a Tuesday.  And as the day was ending, the Unconditional Surrender was announced.

From Wiki:

“Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader, had committed suicide on 30 April during the Battle of Berlin, and Germany's surrender was authorised by his successor, Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz. The administration headed by Dönitz was known as the Flensburg Government. The act of military surrender was first signed at 02:41 on 7 May in SHAEF HQ at Reims,^[2] and a slightly modified document, considered the definitive German Instrument of Surrender, was signed on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin at 22:43 local time (that’s 5:45 PM Washington Time).

The German High Command will at once issue orders to all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations at 23.01 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945.”

I had gone to school that day, PS-82 in Manhattan, knowing nothing of this momentous event. We were at home, beginning to eat our dinner at our Manhattan apartment. The announcement came on the radio shortly thereafter. We all smiled, I remember.

That War had changed many lives, including ending the lives of more than 80 million people worldwide.  And I remember, several months later, smiling when I saw my Uncle Bill walking toward our apartment on Second Avenue, having just returned from his Seabee duties in the South Pacific.  The War had engulfed us all.

Daisy, my mum, had no college training, but she had acquired some skills with numbers. Specifically, she went to work during the War as a Bookkeeper at a company called Gibbs and Cox, a Naval Architecture firm that designed marine vehicles, specifically boats meant for wartime duty.  In addition to Daisy, my sister Ruth dropped out of high school at Julia Richman in Manhattan.  She was 16 and a junior in high school, but the War beckoned and she went to work alongside my mother, but as a typist.

The War had changed so many lives. Daisy worked and earned a decent living, but the War caused the introduction of many changes, not the least being food rationing. We could still buy food, unlike many Europeans, but it was rationed, so that food could be diverted to our troops. Folks were issued Food Stamps that would be needed in order to buy many items of food, as well as other commodities (automobile tires were rationed, and autos themselves became a casualty, with production lines being diverted to producing military vehicles, including tanks, jeeps, etc).

One casualty of the rationing system was our dog. We owned a little white dog we named Cleo. Daisy had bought food for our dinner one day, and, before she got around to preparing our dinner, Cleo had somehow gotten into the meat she had purchased—Rationed Meat!. When it was discovered that Cleo had eaten into the rationed beef, Cleo became history. He was sent to a doggy hostelry and never again darkened our door.

And then there were the Blackouts. When a signal came down, all lights in Manhattan had to be turned off. Think of that. Manhattan went dark. And should we ignore that order, we had an air raid warden banging on our apartment door. They thought maybe New York would be a target for German bombers (although how Germans could have gotten bombers within reach of Manhattan seemed dubious at best. But Blackouts we had aplenty.

I was ten when that war ended, a young lad with many memories of scary days. To be fair, unlike, say, London, we had no bombers dropping those wicked bombs on us in Manhattan. Still, we did not know that then, so we remained apprehensive. Most of us also knew someone actively engaged, and a few friends actually lost someone in conflict. So, when the conflict actually ceased, via that Unconditional Surrender, soon after Adolph committed suicide, there was much shouting and singing and dancing.

Somehow, nothing that followed ever compared to that Great event. 911 comes close to producing great shock, and massive anger. In that crazed act, someone did something that even the Germans could not do during that Great War.  So, if our reaction to 911 is viewed as somehow excessive, we think it was not. Attack America at your peril.

And so it goes.

To Old to Run?

Increasingly, I find myself reading about someone or something that has quit working, or just croaked.  And then, upon checking, it turns out they/it was younger than me.  For example, Gordon Lightfoot, the amazing singer-songwriter, just died at the age of 84 of “natural causes”.  To be fair, some folks have been croaking at well past my age of 88. But, many/most are younger.

We attended a party the other day, and, as we were sitting and chatting, someone asked, “So, how long have you been married?”  And I replied. “Coming up on 68 years this July.” And she looked baffled and said, while laughing, “So, what, you were 3 when you got married?” And then we all laughed. See, nobody else in the group was past maybe their mid-50s.

88?? Who in the hell is 88 and still wandering around, drinking wine and still driving home? It doesn’t even seem right to me.  I mean, I don’t feel like I’m in my 30’s or 40’s, but 88? Nah!.

Now we do know folks who are older. We have a friend, Sidney Tynan, who lives in Rhode Island by herself at the tender age of (almost) 102.  And she still writes a monthly paper called her “Country Newsletter”.  We knew Sidney from our days spent in India during the mid-1960s. And we have remained friends.  And we have another friend from India, now in his 90s, who lives in Florida and still works with his artist wife. And then, we have our friend who lives in Australia and who worked in India with us. He is just 4 months older, but he always makes believe he is younger.

So what does it feel like to be 88? Well, it really is just one day at a time. Mostly, one day resembles the other. Oh we have some variation. We both go to work out three days a week.  And we go out to shop on Fridays and Saturdays (the latter to a local Farmers Market). And Carol works with our local Literacy Council teaching folks to speak better English.  And then Carol spends a lot of her time making quilts for sick kids at our local children’s hospital.  Me?? I don’t do too much. I write this piece occasionally and I play around with vaguely artsy creations. I used to appear at local Art Walks, but they kind of died out during COVID.  Yeah, COVID killed off some nice affairs.  So I find myself reading a bit more and playing on Facebook and Instagram. No, I don’t do Twitter—too mindless, even for me.

One thing I am finding increasingly, is my impatience with Republicans. I cannot believe that I actually voted for a republican for my first vote—Dwight Eisenhower instead of Adlai Stevenson.  But now, I look at almost all republicans and think, Oh God, they are stuck in their minds in 1936 Germany, looking for their very own Adolph Hitler. And who is they wish to kill? Well, anyone trying to gatecrash their way into America from South America—really any people of color, though. And they seem to despise women, but they have to be a bit more careful there, since they tend to marry women.  Oh, and they really hate anyone in the LGBTQ community. They will do almost anything to make their lives miserable.

Now, being 88, I have difficulty with all this hatred. I realize I’m supposed to be far rightwing, hating along with the worst of them. But I’m just not like that, and I am having increasing difficulty with all these hatreds. I guess Donald Trump triggered all this awful stuff and, well he is old, just not as old as me, or even as Joe.

And so I now have to come to grips with this old people thing.  It would seem that the two main characters planning on running for President in 2024 are Donald Trump, age 76, and Joe Biden, age 80. Yeah, yeah, I know that Ron DeSantis is planning a run, and he is only 44. So, maybe I ought to be reconsidering. But no, DeSantis is young, but he is a young Idiot-Malenfant.  He seems to have joined the weird world of Republican Hate groups. So, No, he is not a candidate I might take seriously.

But How about Joe? Well, he would be 82 on taking office, and 86 on finally retiring from Office, assuming he remains alive.  OK, so I’m 88, and I will be way older than Joe, assuming I continue to remain alive.  And I am hearing a lot of jokes about Joe’s age.  He sometimes seems to stumble a bit in speaking and is not exactly agile physically. Still, he is pretty good for his age. And I am familiar with folks who succumb to things like dementia—my Mother for example. So, how can I continue to consider voting for Joe? Well, first, any prediction you might have for Joe, would be hovering above Donald Trump. Yeah, he’s a few years younger, but he begins as an idiot, whereas Joe still has a functional brain.

But suppose Joe begins to slip partway through his term of Office? Well, for one thing, he has a wife who would be positioned to rein him in. But even more importantly, he would have a Vice President (Kamala maybe?) capable of slipping into the position smoothly. Plus, we have all these highly paid folks who would be working for him who would also likely notice should Joe begin to slip. See, that’s the thing about an American Presidency, as distinct from Russia’s Dictator, Vlad. Over there, I assume someone would have to step in and shoot Vlad. See, we have less drastic ways of “retiring” our leaders.

Now I, at the tender age of 88, still function pretty much the same as I did in my 60s or 70s. I think there has not been much deterioration in my brain functioning. And so, although I am well aware of the aging problems, I don’t yet see that as a major deterrent to Joe running for office.  Would I be happier were Joe only 70, rather than 80, well maybe.  And so, do I think maybe he should not run? Well, no I do not.  It still comes down to Joe Biden vs. whoever the republicans select to run against him. And they seem to have no leaders who are not of the Fascist mindset. I am not sure how or why the republican party as a whole has slipped into the world of 1936 Germany, but there it is. If we want to continue living in a democracy, then folks, we are stuck with the Democrats and likely, with Joe Biden. It is so split that I think we dare not vote for a republican for major national office.  I do not know any longer what happened to those thinking people, of ethical/moral character who were/are republican, but they all seem to have gone into their respective closets.  They are no longer available as aides and counselors helping to keep the American ship afloat.  Maybe someday, they will return and kick out the Trumps, Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Kevin McCarthys and Ron DeSantis’ of this world.

Ahh, that would be a wonderful world indeed.

Fond Hope Springs Eternal. And maybe I will still be alive to see that happening. Who knows??? The Shadow Knows.

The Beginning of the End?

I wonder how one knows that one’s country has begun to fail. And also, what happens to a country that fails? I assume that some financial things would begin happening, maybe banks beginning to move their assets to another country, or an increase in the number of industrial or commercial companies that begin failing.  Maybe larger numbers of people would be taking steps to move to a different country, although there are only a few countries that seem logical places to move.   I assume it is still possible that we might “fail” as we did in the 1920s, when the stock markets collapsed and people were forced out of their jobs and millions went looking for work and money.

We normally just assume that all of our safeguards will always remain in place. The various levels of government will remain and continue to do things like fix roads, keep electricity flowing, catch bad guys who are out robbing and killing folks, and protect us against insurrectionists (like Trump) or foreign powers (like Russia). Yet, all of those various levels of protective government require both financial and spoken support. Folks still need to believe in the various institutions of government. And that is what seems to be somehow wearing thin these days.

Ever since Trump was elected and all the right wing racists, misogynists, anti-everything crowd emerged from their respective closets, America has been on a downhill slide. I find it very difficult to understand how anyone could have voted for idiots the like of Marjorie Taylor Greene, and now Ron DeSantis. DeSantis???? He is regarded as a serious candidate for President of America??? Seriously? Whatever happened to the Republican Party of old?  I know that, Yes, Republicans have long toyed at the edges of Fascism. Reagan perhaps began this long trek to failure, but he has had lots of help along the way. But whatever one thinks of, say Ronald Reagan, or George Bush (aka Shrub)  . . . Trump??? How could anyone in their right mind waste their vote on Donald Trump? And then the movement continues downhill.

And consider if you will, all of the legislative battles fought by Republicans to not only ban abortion (thank you Trump SCOTUS), but ban books for God’s sake.  They have banned abortion pills, and then went on to try to ban contraception. Seriously?? You want to ban contraceptive measures so that . . . what? You would have more unwanted pregnancies???

And now their ongoing battles against Gays, Transgender folks, anyone associated with the LGBTQ people. Why? Why would you care about such folks, who have enough problems in life without Republicans stepping in to make their lives even more unhappy.

And then, think Ethics. We have a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence by name, who seems to imagine that he is immune to ethical considerations of any kind. He imagines it is really ok to accept bribes from super-rich associates without any consequences.  A Justice of the Supreme Court?? And these are the folks we rely on to make final decisions on any and all matters of legal, social and ethical concerns?  Note please that SCOTUS as a whole has been entirely silent on Clarence’s trials and tribulations. Not a word from the holy ones. So, Kavenaugh, Barrett, et al, nothing??? You think that crap is none of our business? Amazing. Truly, and a very large sign that our Nation is failing and nobody seems to care, certainly not any of the Republican “holier-than-thou” crew.

And that is what I find most disturbing. That a very large percentage of our Nation’s population can continue to go on as though nothing has happened. Donald Trump? No, he’s a great candidate.  It’s those nasty books on racism that is the problem. We need to ban more books, maybe take our public education and get rid of it, replaced by a private system. We know they’re better, right?

Oh, and let’s get rid of those damned students who are voting in elections.  Yeah, so let’s take away their rights to vote, unless they show up at the voting places at home. And even then we should make it more difficult. Can’t have those kids voting. They tend to vote for Democrats for God’s sake. Can’t have that. Maybe Adolph was right in 1936. We need supreme leaders.  That’s the ticket.

And so we continue on this downward slide into oblivion. Is this why those folks like Washington created America out of a British Colony?  So that Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis could complete our slide into 1936 Germany? I don't know folks. We really need to do some hard thinking. And Yes, we need to vote them out of office.  So get on with it folks. Or the End really is Near.