LIfe in Today's America

 And so, 2025 draws to a close, and this newbie, 2026 enters our scene.  We don’t know what this year will bring, except that Donald Trump remains alive. Well, technically we don’t really know whether he will make it through this new year, but should he leave, there remain so many awful creatures appointed by him that good things seem unlikely. JD Vance, Miller, Kristi Noem et al seem so terminally awful that I would wonder the outcome should Trump fall by the wayside. It’s a bit odd I guess, saying that a Trump departure would not necessarily improve our political world.  But he really seems not to know any ethical, intelligent human beings.

I still have memories of me at about age 6, sitting on our front room floor, by myself, listening to FDR tell us on the radio about Pearl Harbor. Or about, heaven forfend, me voting in my first election for Dwight Eisenhower –yep I actually voted for a republican my first time out.  But it was Ike.  And he was more than OK. He was Ike.

But then the world began resuming its situation normal. Nixon, Bush, Reagan (aargh). Yeah, republicans resumed their norm – Terminally awful.  BUT, and this is a BIG BUT, none of the prior awfuls even resemble Trump. In fact, they all look pretty damned good in comparison to Trump. I mean, Mussolini might fit into his class—Hitler?? No, probably not. Hitler was in a class all by himself.

But, it is difficult to drop Trump into the class of prior officialdom. Some raters just toss him into the class of Worst-ever US President. And that seems OK with me, although to be fair, I  really do not know enough to make such a judgement. I do know that I have never observed a President who routinely was the joke of the room, as well as being simply evil. He is dumb and grotesquely evil, while still making people laugh at him. I cannot imagine folks laughing at Nixon or Reagan, unless they were telling an actual joke.

So, it is hard to know what we are supposed to do when Trump enters our presence. Now the problem with all that is the damage he is doing while he continues to serve. Our global reputation suffers daily. We have a huge military and nuclear weapons, so it is difficult not to take us seriously. But then Bobby Jr. walks on stage and tells us how he is going to dismantle our vaccine programs. Huh??? Or anything Steven Miller says, which seems to bring back memories of Adolph.  So, should we be laughing or arming ourselves?  I no longer know what to think. But him having a heart attack, or him being shot in the head, seem to be plausible possibilities – and how awful is that America?

I find myself, at age 91, wondering whether I will ever again live in an America of which I am proud. How sad that will be, as I move into my sadly aging existence. How sad indeed.

Life

 Life

So, Life is over.  Or, more likely Life never was. I think of something. And then I imagine that it never existed. But maybe it exists, and it is I who never existed.  How would I know? And would it make any difference either way?

Will my great granddaughter awaken someday, and ask, did I have a great grandfather named Richard? And if so, why? Or why not?

I think of India. Why? Because I lived there. Or did I? Does that place exist, or did my mind simply invent it?

And then I think of Donald Trump. Surely he exists, does he not? Well, does he? Ummm, maybe . . . maybe not. Does a squirrel wandering alone in the forest know of that Donald Trump? And if not, why not?

We went to our Farmers’ Market this morning. And folks wandered about, some even spoke to me, or about me.  And did that matter? Why would it? Some laughed at me, with me, about me. And then they went off without me, to spend the rest of their lives without me.

Why am I writing this squirrely piece? Because I do not any longer exist in any meaningful way?

But tomorrow, will I awaken and understand that life  is but a brief moment, and then it is gone, as though it never existed.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow. Will they arrive on schedule, and then go away, as does everything called life? I stare out at existence. Will that Donald creature still be here tomorrow? Or will he too disappear as though he never existed? That would be nice.

Tomorrow. Yes. Do arrive.                              

Hitler is Alive And Well

So what, now we are acting as literal pirates, seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker, and vowing to keep the oil? Is that not the literal definition of a global pirate? And that act falls on the heels of murder, when we killed two men hanging onto the side of a boat we had bombed. We said they were narco-terrorists, but in reality the two men were in the act of drowning, when we killed them. Some label those killings as War crimes, but in fact we are not at War with Venezuela or anyone else.  So, killing them was simply murder, carried out by a direct order of the US Secretary of Defense (likely instigated by Trump).

And nobody within the American government is calling for anyone’s immediate arrest.  And that defines the entire Trump Administration.  I would call it “Anarchy”, but apparently we have something different. Anarchy, simply put, is the absence of government or ruling authority, meaning no rulers or leaders, and can refer to either total chaos and lawlessness or a society organized by voluntary cooperation and freedom without coercion. And we have a “ruling authority”—the US Government, as defined and run by Donald Trump. Our government is now moving towards . . . towards, what . . . Nazism? And what is that? Nazism is totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior. Sounds vaguely like Trump, but he is moving towards his own definition of a Supreme Government Authority. Partly, he has brought into his government people who seem quite unskilled, ignorant even, of the jobs to which they were appointed. Mainly, their job is to carry out whatever Acts by Government that Trump dictates, whether those acts are  defined as “legal” or “Illegal”.  That was the essence of Nazi Germany. Whatever Hitler said or dictated, his followers were obliged to implement.

And oddly, Trump has removed all checks on him, through his republican Congress and his appointment of empty-headed Supreme Court justices (SCOTUS is dead: RIP).  I am pushing onto 91 and have never observed anything like this kind of authoritarian rulership.  In my dim past, I had always thought that Reagan, or maybe Bush II were awful, but they seem saints by comparison.

So, now, with two years to go, America is stuck with a full Nazi-like government that thinks it can kill anyone it wants and act as The Pirate of the Seas whenever it suits them. And because SCOTUS is dead, there seems no one to stop them. Imagine that?

So World, I do not know whether you have the Chutzpah to step in and say, “OK, Donald, No More!” See, that might mean a literal war, and then all those Nukies might become a threat to the world.

Where is AI when it is really needed?

Bye bye World.