SCOTUS & Guns

So, it has now been, what, two weeks, since the Roe v. Wade SCOTUS “decision” was “leaked”. And it (the actual decision) has not yet surfaced, i.e., released. So, does that mean they are still actually arguing? And in the meantime, states are beginning to move (pass laws) that assume Roe v. Wade is dead and they are free to do whatever they want.  And it amazes me. We keep hearing that maybe 60% of the American public favor continuation of legalized abortion. But apparently, SCOTUS cares not about the American public. They care only about what the religious right thinks and says.  And the states. Wow!, Oklahoma just passed a bill banning abortion after six weeks, i.e., when women might barely know they are pregnant.  And similar to other states, they authorize unconnected citizens to sue anyone having an abortion, providing one, or assisting in any way, e.g., anyone driving someone to an abortion could be sued for $10,000. So, Oklahoma has opted for “vigilante justice”.  Makes you wonder when they will authorize their citizen anti-abortion guardians to use guns to enforce their opposition.

And so it goes, as America turns into a Land of Vigilantism.  Nazi’s everywhere you turn.

And speaking of Nazi’s, we have that mass shooting in Buffalo aimed at killing people of color. Ten innocents were killed. The 10 people killed, and an additional three injured, made this weekend's racially motivated attack at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket the deadliest mass shooting of the year in the United States. It is also the 198th mass shooting in 2022. With just over 19 weeks into the year, this averages out to about 10 such attacks a week. And even more recently, the Texas school shooting upped the toll, in which 19 kids and 2 adults were killed. Think of that people—19 innocent children!

The tally comes from the Gun Violence Archive, an independent data collection organization. The group defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter. The full list of mass shootings in 2022 can be found here.

Prior to the Buffalo attack, the largest-scale mass shooting this year was at a car show in Dumas, Ark., on March 19. That attack killed one person and injured 27. Mass shootings, as is well known by now, are a common recurrence in the United States. Around this time last year, the U.S. had experienced a similar number of mass shootings: also about 10 a week. 

We ended 2021 with 693 mass shootings, per the Gun Violence Archive. The year before saw 611. And 2019 had 417.

The massacres don't come out of nowhere, says Mark Follman, who has been researching mass shootings since 2012, when a gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. 

"This is planned violence. There is, in every one of these cases, always a trail of ... behavioral warning signs," he told NPR earlier this month.

Follman, the author of a new book, Trigger Points, says the role of mental health is also widely misunderstood.

"The general public views mass shooters as people who are totally crazy, insane. It fits with the idea of snapping, as if these people are totally detached from reality." "That's not the case", he said. There's "a very rational thought process" that goes into planning and carrying out mass shootings.

The suspect in the Buffalo attack left behind a racist screed, donned body armor, and livestreamed the attack. 

And yet, we do nothing to stop this problem, and we will not even begin to visit the subject of GUNS, i.e., we have too many guns, and way too many automatic weapons that enable mass shootings.

So what should we do? Well, NOT Thoughts and Prayers surely. That is the precise opposite of doing something.  It’s really astonishing that organized religion refuses to deal with the Gun Lobby. Of course, organized religion and the Gun Lobby constitute the current republican party. And when that party controls 50% of our US Senate, we can do nothing.

I am unsure what we should do about gun violence in America. I think America is now alone in this category of organized gun violence against innocent civilians.  But we really do need to get guns off the street, and out of people’s closets.  Which guns? I am unsure. The Gunners of the country say, NO, they are protected by Second Amendment. But as I best understand that Amendment, it argues for a State Militia, not individual ownership of automatic weaponry.  My best take on this is that we need to strip all households of all automatic weaponry. So, maybe no household should own more than ONE SINGLE SHOT Pistol, and ONE Double Barrel rifle/shotgun. Full Stop.  I know, I know. I can hear the screams of anguish.  But those are the same screams to be heard by any proposal to limit guns. ANY! So, why not go for one that might work.  Now how we manage to retrieve all the now illegal guns from homes is a difficult question.  But maybe we can release all those folks imprisoned now for illegal drug usage, and replace them with folks owning illegal guns. Nice, Huh?

But whatever we do, it must pass through the halls of Congress, and at least some republicans must possess the cajones and the ethics to vote in favor. And that might be tough, since there seem no such republicans left on the planet.

Well, we will see what happens. I wonder how long it will be before the next idiot decides to shoot up some preschool somewhere in America. Stay tuned, folks.

Roe v. Wade RIP

 Borrowing from Wiki:

“Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973),^[1] was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The decision struck down many U.S. federal and state abortion laws.^[2][3] Roe fueled an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether or to what extent abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. It also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.

The decision involved the case of Norma McCorvey—known by the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe"—who in 1969 became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her attorneys, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. Texas then appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion. It also ruled that this right is not absolute and must be balanced against governments' interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life.^[4][5] The Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, governments could require reasonable health regulations; during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited entirely so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother.^[5] The Court classified the right to choose to have an abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the highest level of judicial review in the United States.^[6]

The Court's ruling in Roe was criticized by some in the legal community,^[7] and some called the decision an example of judicial activism.^[8] The Supreme Court revisited and modified Roe's legal rulings in its 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey.^[9] In Casey, the Court reaffirmed Roe's holding that a woman's right to choose to have an abortion is constitutionally protected, but abandoned Roe's trimester framework in favor of a standard based on fetal viability and overruled the strict scrutiny standard for reviewing abortion restrictions.^[4][10]

On May 2, 2022, Politico obtained a leaked initial draft majority opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito suggesting that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe and Casey in a pending final decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.^[11] Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the leaked document in a statement released a day later, although he noted that "it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case".^[12]”

I needed to actually see a reasoned definition of this famous ruling. We have spoken and written so much over the past 50+ years about Roe, without always fully understanding it.

As best I can understand, the Roe ruling set in place a series of protections that guarded a woman’s right to decide on whether to continue a pregnancy or to eliminate it.  And the ruling set fairly hard and fast rulings. That is, no state could simply decide on its own whether to enforce the rulings. Roe V. Wade WAS THE LAW OF THE LAND.

And now, because at least two current SCOTUS justices flatly lied to the senators deciding whether to approve their elevation to SCOTUS, we have a change in settled law. So, apparently, it’s ok for candidates to lie during their hearing. And then we get what we deserve—a thoroughly corrupted Supreme Court. Oh, my, it is as though we have five Donald Trumps as justices of our Supreme Court.

And now all the misogynists in America have been let loose, so no woman is safe in any state in America.

And I assume the anti-sex crowd (anti-abortionists=anti-sex) will not let it stop on abortion. Having eliminated the possibility of physician administered abortions, they will now turn to pills that cause abortions. Yes, they will intrude on a woman’s right to obtain abortion pills, including somehow screening their mail (is that at all legal?), and blocking their ability to travel to a state or foreign country to obtain an abortion.  Can they legally do that? Well, in many states (Texas comes to mind) they don’t care about such legal niceties. They will act, perhaps even violently to block abortions. A woman was raped??? Doesn’t matter.  The fetus is not viable? Who cares? Certainly not Gov. Abbott.  I half wonder whether their next step will be to ban contraceptive pills also.

And we have no idea where this mad course leads us. How many riots, even how many riotous deaths may result?

And if women decide to push back and deny sexual intercourse to spouses or close friends . . . as in, “oh honey, sorry, but we aren’t planning any babies, so no on the sex thing.” Might that lead to violence . . . divorces certainly, but male on female violence almost as certainly.  And the anti-abortionists will simply turn away –“didn’t happen on my watch”.

I envision marches on Washington (maybe even on Austin and other such backwards places), marches leading to riots almost certainly. And we know what riots lead to—property damage, human injury and deaths (remember January 6^th??).

My biggest worry is that I do not see a rational course to fix what SCOTUS just broke.  A new Constitutional Amendment?? Can you imagine that passing? How about a Federal Law? Well, any Federal Law would be brought to SCOTUS, and we know where that leads.

Generally, most of the similar dilemmas I write about can be resolved through voting—selecting the right (correct) legislative folks and the problems at least have a chance of being resolved.  But this one seems different.  I assume better/happier results through voting in the right people. But, I don't really understand what legislators can do in this case.

I will have to remain hopeful, because that’s my only option.  I guess voting could lead eventually to expanding the Supreme Court to, say 13 instead of 9.  And then, of course, appointing four moral, ethical, intelligent, humans (you know, the kind of folks republicans no longer know).

So, vote on folks. It really is your only course of action, short of moving permanently to, say, New Zealand.

Will We Continue?

 OK, I am now having serious difficulties knowing how to respond to the day-to-day goings on in America. Plus, many places around the world seem to be afflicted with similar crazy behavior. Putin alone practically denies all semblance of a civilized human being. Clearly, he is committing mass murder on a daily basis, with the full and complete approval of the Russian people. And please don’t argue that, “Oh all the Russian people don’t understand what he is doing”.  Maybe. But I think that, like here, they prefer to believe the lies coming from the Russian state media. It’s the same here. People who watch Fox News pretend they are getting real news, whereas we, the non-Foxies, understand that Fox is brainwashing them daily. Exactly the same way that Russian media is brainwashing Russians.  The difference, of course, is that in Russia, Putin has eliminated any alternatives to Russian state media. Here, Americans actually watch Fox News because they prefer the lies emanating therefrom.

So, in one sphere, we have mass murder being committed on a daily basis, and we are unable to prevent it, because we have a lunatic running Russia who might decide to obliterate the world via nuclear weapons should we challenge him openly.  And in our own personal sphere, America, we seem to be inundated daily with mass stupidity from a now defunct republican party that seems incapable of operating on anything like a normal human basis.  Remember after that election that delivered to us “The Squad”. Remember the Squad? Here from Wiki: “The Squad is a group of six Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It was initially composed of four women elected in the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. They have since been joined by Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri following the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections. The Squad is well known for being among the most progressive and left-wing members of the United States Congress.”

All were elected under the age of 50, have been supported by the Justice Democrats political action committee, and are on the left wing of the Democratic Party. All except Omar and Tlaib were initially elected to Congress after unseating incumbents in primary challenges. All represent safe seats with Cook Partisan Voting Index scores of at least D+25.

The Squad has been said to represent the demographic diversity of a younger political generation and the advocacy of progressive policies such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, which have sometimes clashed with their party's leadership. Ocasio-Cortez coined the "Squad" name in an Instagram post a week after the 2018 election. The term and the group went viral thereafter.

And the Right Wing almost immediately began hating on The Squad, mostly I think because they were women, and partly because they are liberals, which means that they think everyone should have health care, and that workers should be paid a livable working age.  I know, horrors, right?  So republicans hated The Squad.

But what do they offer instead? Well, we have what we might call the ContraSquad.  And who are they? Well, let’s see, we have Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorne, Josh Hawley, Matt Gaetz. I could go on but you know who they are.  And what do they believe? Well, think Jewish Space Lasers causing the wildfires in California. See, if Stephen Colbert, or Trevor Noah had said that, we would just laugh, because it is an obvious comedic idea. When Greene espouses such a thought, we find ourselves wondering, “OK, is she an anti-Semitic Nazi, terminally stupid, or just an evil bitch?” And Boebert? Again from Wiki:

“Boebert supports Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, voted to overturn its results during the Electoral College vote count, and supported the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Boebert opposes measures intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and posted misinformation related to face masks and COVID-19 vaccines. She opposes transition to green energy, abortion, sex education, gender-affirming treatments for transgender minors, and non-heterosexual marriage. She supports an isolationist foreign policy and minimizing immigration to the United States.”

And so the list goes on. This Conservative “Squad” seems to be a weird group of folks who defy common sense and logic much of the time.

And then we have folks such as Mitch McConnell, who seems bent on acting so politically charged that he has vowed to deny any further Democratic SCOTUS appointees (none on the horizon at the moment) any kind of a Congressional hearing.

So, it is not simply that we have an opposing political party challenging Democrats. It’s that we seem to have an almost unrecognizable political party, masquerading as republicans. I keep asking myself, “whatever happened to the republican party”? I actually voted for a republican when I was very young—Dwight Eisenhower. And, although I did not vote for him, I actually worked under the Ronald Reagan Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services.  I well remember Richard Nixon, and The Watergate affair. Heavens, I even watched the McCarthy Hearings—remember those?

And so, I actually understand that republicans are, or at least used to be, a sort of semi-responsible opposition force, even if I disagreed with much of their thinking. If after the data came in, we understood that Reagan’s belief in the Laffer Curve (reduce taxes and revenue will rise to a point) made him seem intellectually diminished.  But I never thought Reagan would destroy America, or our system of Government. Now I am no longer sure.  There is some weird effect operating, perhaps enabled or even amplified by Fox News, that has created a disconnect between the utterances from the republican party operatives and any sense of logic or humanity. And I no longer can recognize any underlying logic, aside from this: Power to the Winner. Nothing else matters. 

Perhaps this disconnect from reality can be attributed to Donald Trump, who is the Compleat Narcissist, and, for him, Power really is everything. To him, nothing else matters. That he is enabled by Fox News is clear. But less clear, is why the American public is still on board. The republican party leadership attempted to overthrow our government—that is what January 6^th was all about.  And yet, republican voters still cling to the Trump mantra.  And I find that frightening to the point that I now see the possibility of a complete failure of our entire system of government, perhaps to a point that we could wind up looking like Russia—Trump’s presumed model. We may know fairly soon actually. Our first window into the future is the upcoming 2022 election, where control of the Senate is at stake. And then, of course, we have the next 2024 election, where we determine who will lead our entire government. Should that be Donald Trump and his coterie, then it is on our heads collectively. That awful event can only occur should the American people decide they want to move to an autocratic style government.

So, think hard folks. It is all in our minds and our hands. Vote, and Vote carefully. It is up to us.

 

 

Today

Today I find myself wondering whether humankind has simply ceased advancing, and maybe instead, we find ourselves moving backwards into some earlier state of precivilized behavior pattern.  I am thinking of Vladimir Putin specifically, who acts as though he wishes to return to a world state in which he rules as permanent monarch and the world outside his realm simply bows to him each time he opens his mouth.

Yes, yes, I know that we (the non-Russian world) have taken steps both to arm Ukraine, and to financially punish Russia for its Nazi-like wartime behavior against Ukraine.  But I also see folks like Mitch McConnell, and the other republican clowns (think Marjorie Taylor Greene) continue acting as though Joe Biden was the real enemy, not Vlad the Impaler. Now, how is that possible?  Well, apparently republicans no longer even notice Vlad’s latest outrage, so busy are they at trying to tear down Joe Biden.  Mitch even allowed as how, after seeing Ketanji Jackson-Brown approved for SCOTUS, that he planned to work especially hard to ensure that no other SCOTUS nominees from the Dems would ever see the light of day.

See, we as a people, no longer have anything in common, towards which we might work as a united Nation.  Maybe social media, that hotbed of hateful commentary, has really captured America.  We seem no longer to understand what is important and what is minor. Makes me wonder what might have happened had FDR’s various depression-era and Wartime initiatives been treated by Mitch McConnell.  Might he simply have objected to the CCC, the WPA, and even to our entry into WW II? Would he have treated Pearl Harbor as some Democratic plot to gain control?  Can’t you hear OANN and Fox reporting on Pearl Harbor, or the Nazi invasion of Europe and all those Death Camps, treating all that as Democratic hysteria?

Now to be fair, we as a Nation remain unsure how best to rein in Vlad. He seems completely over the edge of that madness line. And, worse yet, as his invasion efforts continue to fall apart due to the ineptitude of the Russian military and the fierce resistance of a united Ukraine, we cannot say with any confidence what path he may take up to and including nuclear war against Ukraine.  As we diddle and dither, using our limited financial toolkit, Vlad seems to be growing increasingly crazier.  So far, nothing, however horrific, seems to working to get the Ukrainians to accept defeat.  Instead, they keep punching Vlad in the nose.  Now, within Russia, Vlad has so secured the airwaves and the print media that ordinary Russian citizens seem to have no idea how awful has been the performance of their Russian military and their War Crimes approach to this invasion. Everything is lovely in the garden and all bad effects (i.e., dead people) are totally the fault of the Nazi Ukrainians. And if they can’t get their money out of their banks, that is also Zelinskyy’s fault.

And the fact that republicans seem to all have their collective heads up their asses seems to be going unnoticed by the world at large. We are too busy yelling about Will Smith and what our public schools are doing to brainwash our kids into becoming Gay.  Or, for heaven’s sake, why suddenly everyone seems to want to have an abortion.  So, all republican states are now focused exclusively on LGBTQ issues or on abortion, and none of them seem to care about actual mass killings in Ukraine.  Oh, and don’t get me started on that 1619 Project, where we teach children all about race and racism. Horrors, do we really want our children to know that we are a racist culture???

So, let’s instead, change the channel, let our republican leaders safeguard our ballots so no Democrats can win , and we will all send "Thoughts and Prayers" to Ukraine.  Now, can we get back to the Will Smith Horror story???

Rationality

 It’s really interesting about this Life thing. I thought, in my innocence, that as I became older I would understand life’s occurrences better.  But, as it turns out, it would seem that the older I get the less I understand. Well, that applies to humankind. Other animal critters have always been a bit beyond me.

When I was really young, you know, the 1940s and 1950s, I seemed to at least have some understanding of how America was responding to the events of the day throughout the world. You know, there was that nasty depression thing that began in the thirties and continued to at least the beginning of WW II, when FDR founded that CCC creature, and then we began moving into full production mode to gear up for that War. Everyone seemed to be pretty much on the same page. I am sure we had our share of closet Nazi’s who supported Adolph’s adventures into mass murder. But the key is that they remained within their respective closets. Mostly Americans who vocalized about things, pretty much supported our president. If republicans objected they seemed to remain largely quiet and supported the war effort.

Then we entered the 1950s and a period of relative quiet, even as that Cold War thingie grew into a bigtime phenomenon.  We seemed to hate the Russkie-Soviets and they hated us. But we reacted by building bigger bombs each year, and they did the same.  There was that period during the late 1950s in Cuba, when the Soviets seemed to believe they could move on us, and just as everyone thought maybe we would all be toast in the morning, everyone backed off.

We had the Korean dustup, in which a lot of Koreans and Americans were killed, but that stayed in Korea, and we backed off.  So, two Koreas, huh??

Oh and then we entered our first war that we were eventually destined to lose—in a place called Vietnam. It was all about that Cold War, during which everyone on each side wanted to demonstrate their cojones. We finally gave up after losing 38,000 American troops, and several hundred thousand Vietnamese troops. Oh, I know, we still argue about whether we “LOST” the war in Vietnam, but we simply walked away and then the North took over the entire country. That seems like we lost.

Now, to be fair, during the entire Vietnam War period, from say 1954 until Nixon left in 1975, we had an ongoing “debate” about the War. Many protests, even some riots, and genuine disagreements among the populace.  Nixon even won the presidency based on his stance about ending that war.  But in truth he never really “ended” it. He vastly expanded it, even to bombing Cambodia, before just giving up and walking away.

Now throughout this entire period, I thought I at least understood the arguments. While I didn’t necessarily agree with being at war in Vietnam, I did understand that our nation's peoples needed to continue speaking with one another. I at least vaguely understood the principles operating and the arguments uttered by each side of the ongoing debate.

And then our country seemed to begin becoming confused. Maybe it was Ronald Reagan, or maybe Reagan simply reflected the state of confusion. But I began becoming confused.  I even worked in our government briefly under Reagan.  I had joined the Department of Health, Education and Welfare when Carter was still president. Then Reagan boomed into office and I found myself working under this weird republican administration.  Reagan said and did weird things. He subscribed to that Laffer Curve theory, in which, in theory, when you cut tax rates, your tax revenues would rise and everyone would be happier.  Well, The Laffer curve is in truth a Laugh a minute. Turns out, as you reduce tax rates, your revenues go down and you produce even bigger deficits. But Reagan was really more a movie star than a thinking human. What did he know?

But folks on the right in America still voted for him and he won a second term. We experienced what became known as “Reaganomics”. From Wiki, Reaganomics, refers to the neoliberal economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These policies are commonly associated with and characterized as supply-side economics, trickle-down economics, or voodoo economics by opponents, while Reagan and his advocates preferred to call it free-market economics.

The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation.

The results of Reaganomics are still debated. Supporters point to the end of stagflation, stronger GDP growth, and an entrepreneurial revolution in the decades that followed. Critics point to the widening income gap, what they described as an atmosphere of greed, reduced economic mobility, and the national debt tripling in eight years which ultimately reversed the post-World War II trend of a shrinking national debt as percentage of GDP.

And this period, during which I finally had to leave my government post and go into business for myself before going braindead, was characterized by serious political disagreements that spread throughout our country.  Then we had a series of presidents under whom the political disagreements blossomed into a form of national dystopia. Reagan, then Bush I, then Clinton, then Bush II, then Obama, and finally Trump, wherein the “National Good” as a concept seemed to disappear altogether. Obama was interesting. He was bright, ethical, and focused on trying to restore our status as a Nation of all its people. But he was also a person of color. And that was so provocative that common sense no longer seemed to operate. He was born in Hawaii, but was accused of being African at birth, Kenyan I believe was the charge. And our racists began coming out of their closets en masse.  And then Donald Trump succeeded to the Presidency, beginning our period of mass hysteria cum lunacy.  And that is where I began losing all sense of what we Americans were thinking. Maybe it was as simple as closet racism becoming the norm in America (I had thought the Civil War settled that issue). But it seemed bigger even than racism.  Trump appealed to a growing body of opinion throughout our Nation that Government should no longer dominate the National dialogue on any subject.  Trump was/is so stupid that he seemed to offer folks who hated thoughtful consideration of issues a way out. Don’t think, just react. Trump was/is a racist, misogynist, narcissist, borderline crook, and completely at odds with thoughtful approaches to any/all national and international policy issues. He basically began pulling us out of all alliances, under the guise of “Making America Great” again.  And this seemed to appeal to more Americans than I care to count.

And because his voice was heard by so many Americans who seemed of the same mindset (racist, misogynist, narcissist, et al) other politicians began subscribing to his visions and his rhetoric.

Now, in 2020, the American people as a voting bloc sent him packing. But Trump and his minions refused to go gently into the night, resulting in, at the least, the January 6^th murderous mob scene in which idiot-malenfants decided to take over our government so as to restore their dude to office.  Now that effort failed, because our government was still operating largely under laws and rules forbidding such a devious effort.  But the mindset has now continued and perhaps even expanded.  How else to explain the likes of Madison Cawthorne, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert getting elected into office? On the other hand, we also elected “The Squad” –again from Wiki: The Squad is a group of six Democratic members of the It’s really interesting about this Life thing. I thought, in my innocence, that as I became older I would understand life’s occurrences better.  But, as it turns out, it would seem that the older I get the less I understand. Well, as that applies to humankind. Other animal critters have always been a bit beyond me. 

On the other hand, we elected “The Squad” –again from Wiki: The Squad is a group of six Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It was initially composed of four women elected in the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. They have since been joined by Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri following the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections. The Squad is well known for being among the most progressive and left-wing members of the United States Congress.

All were elected under the age of 50, have been supported by the Justice Democrats political action committee, and are on the left wing of the Democratic Party. All except Omar were initially elected to Congress after unseating incumbents in primary challenges. All represent safe seats with Cook Partisan Voting Index scores of at least D+25.

The Squad has been said to represent the demographic diversity of a younger political generation and the advocacy of progressive policies such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, which have sometimes clashed with their party's leadership. Ocasio-Cortez coined the "Squad" name in an Instagram post a week after the 2018 election. The photo, taken at a VoteRunLead event where the four founding members spoke, subsequently went viral.

So, now we have people both in and outside Congress who barely speak the same language. And, as a result, I now barely even understand the principles under which “debates” occur throughout our sorry Land.  The three republicans, Cawthorne et al, seemed to be hailing victory signals during the violent insurrection, and they seemingly support Putin over Zelensky.  Cawthorne referred to Zelensky as a “Thug” (although it is doubtful Cawthorne even knows what a “Thug” actually is). Given what Putin is doing in Ukraine, War Crimes, by most observers, I fail to understand how these idiots could support Russia. Would they have supported Adolph Hitler for heaven’s sake?

And so it goes. Republicans as a whole throughout Congress seem now incapable of rational thought, and are simply opposed to anything our President proposes.  And those republicans seem to retain the support of their voting blocs.  Why, How??? How is that even possible? Do Americans actually support and plan to vote for idiots such as Cawthorne,  Greene and Boebert? Really folks?? You agree with these idiots??

I suppose we will know for certain during this 2022 by-election. If republicans win and take over Congress, then I suggest that America may be lost for eternity. Hopefully, we are better than that. We will see.

So, folks, whatever you are thinking about by-elections, get out and VOTE. Our very future as a rational nation depends on your VOTE.

Please VOTE!

 

Life & Cataclysm

One day, we were speaking with a senior member of the team at our favorite restaurant. And that person was talking about the owner, who was now beginning to think about retiring and moving.  Note he was not going to do it soon, but had begun considering the possibilities.  But I began thinking . . . “No, you are not allowed to retire and move on.  You must in fact stay in place at least until we croak.”  See, I realize that someday I will croak and my wife will also.  We’re at that age when the thought has now entered our heads. When you’re 30, that thought never enters. I suppose it’s there, but it remains properly in the brain’s background.

But everything around us is also supposed to remain in place. Our favorite restaurant, Central Park (when I still lived in Manhattan), the Museum of Natural History, my siblings (now departed).  So many people and places. They are all part of my mind’s landscape.  And although I might soon depart, that landscape must remain in place. After I am gone, the landscape can do as it pleases.

It’s interesting to observe, because life changes about you all the time. Folks come and go, some more dramatically than others, even the odd building might decide to up and disappear. And things also change about you. It is why, when you have been gone from some place you once knew well and loved, you sometimes decide that you do not wish to return for a visit.  India is like that for us. We lived there for four years during the 1960s. We loved our lives there, and all the amazing places we visited while living there. Not just Delhi, but places like Agra, Jaipur, Darjeeling, Simla, Kashmir.  Seeing the Taj Mahal at full moon.  But we are told that smog now envelops the country. Could you even see the Taj at full moon any longer?  See, so many changes doubtless have taken place over the past 50+ years, that we might not like all those changes. So, better not go for another visit.

And then I think of Ukraine.  How many “favorite restaurants” have been decimated by the Russians? How many homes destroyed forever just because Vlad the Impaler is a weak little man who seeks to prove his manliness by destroying a neighbor?  People awaken daily there to find some loved thing gone forever.  People, places, things, all destroyed.

And then we have people like Queen Elizabeth II. For most of the world and certainly the British population, Queen Elizabeth has been a benign presence who symbolizes continuity, decency, and the presence of a system of benign governance that is supposed to last forever. But Elizabeth is beginning to simply wear out. Soon, she will be gone, with no obvious source of continuity.  Yes, Prince Charles or Prince William will step into her place and resume as King. But it will not be the same. Referring back to my restaurant, it would be like another restaurateur taking over, or simply establishing a new and different restaurant. For me, that might be a blow too hard. Now to be fair, I know replacing a restaurant is not quite the same as replacing the Queen of England.  Still it defines this continuity thing of which I am speaking.

I think the stability thing is a function of the brain’s ability to cope with changes. The brain apparently is fully capable of coping with change, so long as the change arrives within a sea of stability.  I imagine, for example that, for children, the dissolution of a marriage, causing one of the two partners to leave, and perhaps the entire family to have to move into new quarters goes beyond some brain boundary of reasonableness throwing the whole family into a confused state of being.  See, that is simply more change than the brain wishes to deal with, and some brains just revolt.

It is why we all need to stabilize the conditions within our lives. Now, to be fair, lives will become deadly boring should no changes ever greet those lives.  Our move to India for four years is a great example.  It was probably borderline traumatic for at least one of our two kids, but fascinating and expanding for the family as a whole. Travel generally expands your kitbag of useful information. I assume too much travel throws too much useful information and the brain again might rebel.

And so our lives need both stability and changes, and we need to pay attention to both so as to achieve useful balance.

So, we really do not need to have a foreign power drop bombs on our cities, or move tanks into neighboring  territories (Canada take notice please. No bombing is allowed).  It’s funny. As I write this I am reminded of our town’s NIMBYs.  You know NIMBY right (Not In My BackYard)??  Several times we had minor villager rebellions by our local NIMBYs about changes coming to our village. The best example was the near revolt that occurred with the announcement that a large jail would be built next to our County Courthouse.  And the NIMBYs totally lost it. They would not have a jail within our charming little village downtown area.  What folks were ignoring of course, was that most County Seats (our village) have to have a jail to accompany the County Courthouse, so the judges would have a place to send all those nasties who are convicted of dastardly crimes.  Well, eventually the issue was settled and the jail was built and the NIMBYs returned to their scrabble games (maybe they all play Wordle now).  But the dispute raised the issue of stability v. change at the community level. NIMBYs demand continuity. Developers demand change. So let the games begin.

Meanwhile, I sit at home playing my mind games, since I have nothing useful to do any longer.  I’m old remember?? Hahahahaha.  Champion Balance in Life. Make changes, retain stability. Balance. That’s good.

Waiting for God

 Not too long ago, I noticed an Arts Advisory position posting in the City.  And I thought, “Huh, were I only, say, 65, I would almost definitely apply.” But, as it is, even though, at the moment, I still have all my marbles, no one would even consider me, given my advanced age of 87.   Anyone with a functioning brain automatically assumes that an 87 year old is simply too old, and could not be relied upon to carry out normal job duties, of any job really.  So, even “advisory” positions are out of reach, meaning essentially, that no one any longer wants my views/opinions on anything.

And I now understand that I am, almost literally, “Waiting for God”.  For those of you not given to watching British TV series, “Waiting for God” is the name of an olden comedic series about a bunch of elders living in an elder home—sort of glorified motel with meals, where no one does anything any longer, aside from chatting it up, and, oh yeah, then occasionally dying. They seem a happy enough lot, but a happy lot with nothing to do any longer with life.

And so, we move on awaiting that God thingie.

Now, we still wear masks when we venture out, as in shopping at a food store, but that’s about it. We still have no interest in acquiring familiarity with the COVID mess. See, we don’t think of masks or vaxxing as “freedom” issues, but more as “staying alive” issues. So, the dudes running around the beltway in DC in their semitrailer trucks seem a pointedly stupid lot to us. But we’re old, so what do we know?

Happily, Carol doesn’t need anyone’s permission to continue making her quilts for sick kids at the local Children’s hospital. She just got herself a new sewing machine, so she is back to quilting happily. See, she knows how to quilt and doesn’t need anyone’s permission.  So, she and her quilting BFFs just keep on doing their good work. Now, I used to act in the guise of a pseudo-artist. That is, every quarter, the local Arts Council would schedule an Art Walk and I would create and then enter my artsy pieces. It was fun pretending to be an artist. Here’s a couple of pieces I entered in one of those olden Art Walks. The first is an early sunrise at our daughter’s place in Virginia. They have nice sunrises. The second is a Buddhist priest at a temple in Kathmandu, praying while he is hiding from the Chinese who invaded his original home in Tibet lo those many moons ago.  See, I have a lot of pictures taken over the years, and I like showing them off. I know, I know, they don’t qualify as real art—no paint brushes involved.  Still those used to be great fun.

But then along came COVID and essentially shut down the old concept of Art Walks. See Art Walks used to involve indoor spaces (we had an old bank building no longer occupied as a bank). That was great space, but it was great indoor space, with lots of folks mixing together and chatting it up with the artisans who were selling their works. And I displayed my works. Once in a while, I actually sold a piece. But mostly, I just chatted with folks who always asked me how I produced the works on display. Whenever I got around to mentioning the stage at which I created the work in Photoshop, they would say, “oh you Photoshopped it” and then walk away. I finally got to the point where I invented something called the “Adobe Magic Wand”. And then when folks asked me how I did it, I would say, “Oh, I used my Adobe Magic Wand. See, you bring up a picture in Photoshop, wave the magic wand at it and the wand then creates the final artsy creation.”

So, I never really acquired the “Artiste” designation. Still, I had fun. But then along came the Pandemic and shut down all those sweet indoor gatherings.  Occasionally now, the Arts Council will sponsor what they call an Art Walk. But that is, they provide a space on the street in downtown Concord. You provide a table and a tent to house your art work. And if it doesn’t rain or snow and folks actually come by, you can still pretend to be an artist. But that is just beyond my discomfort tolerance level, so I have given up Art Walks. But that was my last vestige of community participation. Now, it’s all Facebook, all the time.  I can pretend to still be alive and participating by posting things.  And my “Friends” at least look at my postings, so, See, I am still here.

I was going to say something about Vlad the Impaler and his preoccupation with bombing hospitals and little sick children, but I think enough has been said. I guess we could say more about our local idiot-malenfant, Madison Cawthorn who announced his view that Mr. Zelinsky, the Prime Minister of Ukraine was a ”thug”, but how can I comment on someone that utterly stupid? Imagine, real humans actually voted for that idiot.  Made me wonder actually whether Cawthorn actually knows what the term “Thug” actually means. Probably not.

Well, I will leave my commentaries on Vlad to another time, perhaps after one of his BFFs assassinates him. Won’t that be fun?

Ta Ta.