QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    That is what makes the world go round. Travel with a child, and face a barrage of questions, usually beginning with a why or a what, each question built upon the answer of the prior one. It can drive a parent right up the wall, but it is a path of growth and a path of introspection for the adult as the child ages and the questions and answers become more in depth about life and more difficult to anwer.
     The question of the day yesterday, one that actually has no answer or a most depressing one, was asked by a student being led to safety at Saugus High School where there was yet another mass shooting, student on students. The question? "What kind of a world is this?"
     The kid got it in one. Try to answer that question without tripping over your tongue, without trying to cover up the rot from within, the backsliding of mankind. It is nigh onto impossible. What do we tell our adolescents about the growth industry of school, religious institutions, places of work and fun as scenes of mass murders and woundings. Explain it to me, if you can, for I too ask what kind of world are we living in and bequeathing to the younger generation?
     What kind of a world ignores the past horrors of mankind's history and persists in backing traitors, demagogues, awful immoral people who think the world revolves around them and their wants and needs? How do we explain the shameful treatment of two of our most distinguished citizens, who served their country, our country, with honor and dignity in the military and State Department? How do we allow representatives of Captain Bone Spur to denigrate them in public, dismiss their detailed statements, even after their notes were confiscated by the Justice Department in an effort to shut them down.
     How did we allow the crude attacks, the support of lies as truth and truth as lies, by Nunes and Jordan, by Zeldin? The nastiness of their motivations and goals reeked, as their faces became distorted with histrionic statements and emotions. Truly, the ugliness within came pouring through to the outside. Truly, what kind of a world is this?
     There have been mass accusations against supposed public servants  and misuse of funds, pushes for them to be tried, to be censored, to be driven to resign, be fined, punished in some way. Yet the elephant in the room, the most egregious malefactor, is allowed to continue in office, to continue to destroy our moral fiber, our governmental system, rage in deranged rants about judges, about his power, about his desire to run the country by fiat, by desires of his very dark soul.
     What is worse is the fact that we allow this man and his servants, and I use those two words purposely, for that is what they are to him, actually what the entire GOP contingent on the Hill is, to drive a government run by corruption, by phone calls from restaurants, by violations of every rule of safety and security for the country, by the rampant ignorance, the defiance of the proofs of science and the need for safety regulations, even as they are rolled back and the poisons, physical and mental, emotional and political, grow worse.
     Plain, no account citizens shiver in dread of subpoenas, however unlikely, wishing to stay out of any official maws, tremble with horror at the thought of engaging with the IRS, and yet this man, the President, has multiple lawsuits going on as he refuses to honor his pledges, as his frauds are exposed, as his lies about his business skills and fortunes are bared to the air. He is naked, yet his clothing is praised and admired by the willfully blind and unthinking of the nation.
     What kind of world is this? I cannot answer that in any kind of positive spin. We have tossed away achievements, gains that were costly in so many ways, destroyed so much of the good. If we do not watch carefully, we will be giving this man and any of his ilk who follow, the right to be the be all and the end all of it all. No rules, no oversight, no roadblocks to absolute power and most likely, goodbye to elections, goodbye to democracy and hello injustice, oppression, war, mass hunger, eruptions of bias and hate driven attacks. All this as we ignore the rising waters, the contaminated waters, the destruction of our lands in so many ways, as land areas of our nation and the world disappear.
    What kind of a world is this? Despite the efforts of some, even many, it is not enough to make up for the rest, for the evil, yes, evil, to be found in huge dollops all  over the world, and particularly in our own nation's House. Yes, the man sitting in there, stuffing his face, making nice nice to other dictators, who revels in doing the wrong thing, who is deranged in much of his talk and deeds, well, yes, he is evil. What else can he be called when we take a look at what he has caused, brought about in this country.
    What kind of a world is this? You answer that 14 year old boy without destroying his every hope for the future - for the present! I cannot, not at this point.