FROM THE MOUTH OF HARDY

     "If a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst."   Thomas Hardy
     It does not take a genius to understand how applicable this statement is to and for our times. We have seen the worst, certainly in recent days, and we are for sure looking for the good, for the better and often seemingly doing so in great desperation these days.
     Just saw a list of our reserve funds for various big ticket items and what we need to add to these funds this year to keep on track. Simple, yet if followed carefully, it leads to financial and physical stability and an assurance that one is prepared. Unfortunately this is what we do not have with CV here in WPB. There is no accounting for reserve funds under David Israel. I have hope now that we have an outside accountant who will not play games - hopefully - and promises that next month he will show how much money is actually allotted to exactly what needs. Hopefully, this will take place and I bet David is shivering in his back office, wondering what will be when the people realize how little is actually there for what we will need, from roadwork to fence work to infrastructure to legal fees for a new agreement for which we are pathetically behind in set up and prep, for anything and everything that a small town needs. See, this is not a 'campus'. This is a town, a village, of people who wish to have a steady and good administration but we do not have that. We are seeing our worst, but the better is yet to come. And there is still the business with the old golf course, the waterways in our village and more. And with an inept administration and blinded minions, we are in deep, to our necks.
     As for the bigger picture of the country and the world, well, history has certainly showed us the worst of mankind, particularly with mankind's own creation of the horror or the issues, but certainly we are rivaling at some level. Have we seen the worst? Oh, yes, so let's see.
     We now have the worst president ever in modern times. Yes, there have been other corrupt ones, inept ones, selfish ones, but this one is rivaling them all. We have one at the head who is inept beyond words and has stumbled knowingly or otherwise into disasters of his own making. He does not know what to do and the very inexperience of which he boasted is now his cross to bear. And ours too.
     Driven by personal and selfish needs, the interests of companies are trampling on the needs and interests of the people. We have lost the heart and soul of our country and have stood in front of the world in shame as we chase after people, grabbing them off the streets to throw them away, to toss them out, ripping families apart. We stand in shame as we allow haters to march and chant against Jews, who paint nooses on African American property, who flaunt the flag of an enemy we once thought we had defeated. We claim history is inside granite and metal statues, worshipping them as of days of old, forgetting that history is in the words, deeds, experiences and lessons learned from it.
     It is this very history that should have shocked us at the arrest of a nurse doing her job, following a Supreme Court ruling that a blood sample cannot be taken without consent or warrant. The manhandling and arrest of this nurse and the sight of hospital guards standing there and allowing this to happen, with the sounds of her screams echoing, sends a shudder thru any thinking person. Will we once again allow people, allow ourselves, to stand by while injustice is perpetrated?
     And we are not done yet. Despite the shouts, cries, pleas and cruelty of it all, today Sessions is set to announce the official policy on DACA and the Dreamers. Over 800,000 young people who are teachers, students, military people, engineers, medical personnel, and yes, even a few rotten apples - but all Americans, for here they have grown up and here they have built their dreams just as all of our families have done, have become part and parcel of our economy and country and woe upon us if we throw them out. Woe upon the split and divide that will arise. Woe upon us for what it says about us to the world. Woe upon us for what it says about our heritage and values. Woe upon us that we allow bigots such as Sessions and Trump and their followers to set this tone and these actions for all Americans. At least we have people who are already setting up protests and legal alternatives against this heartless and harmful plan.
     We have a foul mouthed ranter who has now gotten us into trouble almost over our head as we draw nearer and nearer to a nuclear war or at the very least an economic war that will wreak havoc on Americans and crack the global economy. But Trump must keep shooting off his stupid inexperienced and ignorant mouth. And there is no one there to shut him up, to tape it shut. And in the meanwhile, the bean counters are figuring how many dead will we have and the jerk from North Korea is shlepping his ICBMs closer to the coast, all the better to shoot you, my dear.
     And more of the worst is here. We have all read of the political officer in the armies of the fascists and communists and lookee here. Now we have the insertion of a Trump aide who knows little or nothing about the environment except for his dangerous beliefs that there is no climate change and certainly humans have played no art in it. He is the one to now approve all grants and dispensation of money for programs and has given the order to eliminate those two words - climate change - from any and all papers of the EPA. So forest fires, floods, mammoth hurricanes and yet another one coming along to Florida and running into other states, droughts and the increasingly rare adequate supply of clean drinking water, the melting of the ice packs - nope, no climate change. Just ask this moronic administration.
     So have we seen the worst, that which we must see according to Hardy if we are to be able to see and know the best? Scary to say, I think there is more 'worst' to come. We have not yet reached the bottom of the barrel, the worst of all scenarios and I dread its coming, its certainty of arrival, if we keep on this path. So will we? Will we prove Hardy's statement true? Dear G-d in Heaven. I hope not. Please endow us with some more sense, some more compassion, so that we will know the right path when we see it, when we will remember our compassion for our fellow beings, and when we show proper care for our planet upon which we all live. And for which we have no substitute. Dear Lord - help us.