ROCKS AND HARD PLACES

 Every single one of us has been caught in a dilemma at one point or another. Do this and the world caved in, the floor falling out beneath your feet. Do that and the sky fell upon you. There seemed to be no solution without pain. There seemed no way out of a painful situation, twist and turn as one might.

That is where we are now, today, as a nation. We have many rocks. A surge in immigrants trying to get in, or at least get their children to safety. A country that has to find the funds to service its citizens, let alone handle a flood of children. A nation split in two, staring at each other over a growing abyss, with one side continuing to pursue false conspiracies and spreading lies, avoiding truth like a plague. And a pandemic as the cherry on top.

Do we handle the conspirators and rebels of January 6 as the traitors they were and are, or do we go with the false narrative of Ron Jonson and deny the violence, make believe there were no deaths and injuries, no windows broken, no guards battered, no fear among the legislators as they scurried to safety. So was it simply a 'rowdy' crowd or a serious attempt to overthrow this government by force, treason, plain and simple. Rocks and hard places, no matter the truth or the lies one pushes.

Pity Biden, caught under a microscope of unfriendly origin, his literally every step examined and analyzed. So he stumbled going up the steps. Big deal. Ever walk up or down those airplane steps? They are not easy. Better that than a man who claimed to skid down an icy steep slope on a mild ramp on a very hot day, or a man who needed two hands to lift a small bottle of water to his mouth. And for Trumpians to crow about every word misspoken or a slip of a tongue on pronunciation, well, perhaps they need a review of the illiterate, nonsensical, inane yet dangerous strange prose of Trump. Verbal gaffes are the norm for all of us; verbal dementia, as with Trump, is not.

Rocks and hard places. How does one answer ridiculous claims without appearing defensive? Should one simply ignore it or will that lead to further lies and truth fudging? Should one respond, will it only grow, like a blob that ate a town in a sci-fi movie? Rocks and hard places leave little room to maneuver, and any effort to extricate oneself from this position is often treated with derision and nastiness. My opinion? Simply give it back in understatements that will take a moment for them to get the point as it hits them over the head.

Such a moment occurred on the Pirro show as an immigration attorney zinged her one. He calls her on her lies and false 'facts' - Very few things I heard on this show tonight have been facts,"  and stops her in her tracks as she pulls the plug on the show with his second comment. "President Biden kept his promise,"...  He's making America better. .."He's making America great again."  Gotta' love it!! Here is a man who knows how to shove the other side in between those rocks and hard places. Kudos to him.

A country where we have returned to the streets of Dodge City, the violence of Laredo. We have disturbed characters who think it is their right to stab, shoot, wound and kill any other person to whom they take a dislike or who upsets their equilibrium by their very existence. Black, White, Asian, adult or child, it makes no never mind. Hence the stabbing of a 12 year old boy on line in McDonald's. Hence the jaundiced eyes of the GOP who regard imperiled children and frantic parents and relatives as the Enemy at the Border!

Rocks and hard places. How did we get into this mess and more important, how do we get out? I recall that on a trip to Joshua Tree, a national park, a stunning place of stark beauty and silence, we walked through a slip of a crack into a hidden valley. We walked along the rocks, finding a path of sorts and then realized that all we saw in front of us were rocks and huge boulders, no view of the 'outside'. Talk about rocks and hard places.

 I was imagining us stuck there, all wondering what the heck happened to us? Then a man came along, asked if we needed help, and he explained that this often happened to people walking here and he showed us the way out, between the rock and the hard places, the boulders blocking the exit.

That is what we need today. A person to come along and show us the way. Until that happens, Biden is doing a damned good job. He is calm, keeps his mouth shut and his nose to the grindstone as he tries to unravel the mess left behind by Trump and his coterie of enabling incompetents. No shenanigans. Only serious efforts and plans. Strong efforts to dislodge the rocks, the boulders, the hard places, purposely left behind by the traitor, Trump, and his co-conspirators. We need to get behind him. We need to become a rational nation once more and that is solely up to us. We must do better. We must find our way out between these rocks and hard places. We must. No second choice will do.