"SCAT ALL AROUND"

  The title was inspired by a story of a woman trapped with two broken bones, unable to walk, cell phone unable to work, no sat phone, only a husband who had to leave her and go for help. Seven miles back. Bad enough, but all around her was grizzly scat, a term used for animal poop. Luckily all worked out at story's end, but there are times when they do not. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to America 2022.

Actually, there are people among us, too many, who continue to express belief that we are actually in 2020, with echoes of even earlier times gaining ground. Serious cases of illusionary wishful thinking and a determination to return to toddler days, when the real world would disappear when eyes were closed and reappear when eyes were reopened. Elementary misapprehensions that generally clear up as the toddler grows up. However, today we are surrounded by hordes of people who do not see the scat around, surrounding us, nor their contributions to it. 

They are under the misapprehension that the real world is one they have negated by closing their eyes to the truth, preferring the anti-world, a creation of eyes closed. A preferred world for them, though a world which generates scat, dangerous scat, particularly as we continue to remain in grizzly territory. Time for us to move on, to grow up, all of us, and regain recognition of truth, of proper year and time. 

2020 is over, as is 1873 and a repressive and oppressive misogynistic view. Interpretation of its words as bolstering those viewpoints does not make them so. Unfortunately, there are 'fake' Justices who play dirty political football in grizzly territory, the scat piling up as rights disappear and other rights being chased by the grizzly horde who cheer those Justices on. And the scat in our lives accumulates as the sound of grizzlies approaching grows ever nearer. Ever more threatening to throw the sane ones out of the forest - if they are not eaten.

In the year 1873-2020-2022 contraception is seen as a pathway to avoid abortions by the pro-life movement. Actually, it is rather the opposite as more women will die or undergo life-altering complications. Their power over their own bodies removed, negated, in this most unreal world. There is even a statement in one anti-abortion law which states that "deadly force" can be used to stop an abortion. Oh yes! Pro-life indeed. Yes, in this most unreal, backwards, scat filled world we now live in.

Yet more poop piling up as more and more of the Christian Evangelicals buy into the idea that Christian power, White power is part and parcel of their religion. Not all, but a growing portion and that is most frightening. Particularly as women are 'taught' to be submissive to men. The definition of woman is akin to that of the American Webster dictionary of 1928 which defines a woman as a "womb-man". That is her life. That is her definition. Should she die in childbirth, well that is a "noble act". Thus, the new year - 1873-1928-2020 and a grudging 2022. The growls grow ever louder. Louder. Louder.

In American terms the "magic is over". We are in a different world. A world where the magic of life, its opportunities, its excitements, its realities are denied to women, to children. A view that is anti-life more than anything else. It supports rights removal. Voting rights? Bah, Humbug! Equality of genders? Ha!! LGBTQ+ - are you out of your mind?! No, certainly not in Disney any longer.

The question is haunting us all, those who ascribe to reality, to truth, to acceptance of responsibilities, of keeping one's sworn oath, of loyalty to country, not cult loyalty to a man. We refuse to be "banned forever" from Disney as a fighting family was. We insist that recognition of reality is a priority in life, in our country, in our values. We refuse to be intimidated by scat or grizzlies or their apparent existential threat to us. Nor will we allow the misaligned, wrong believing grizzly fans to push ahead in line, seeking to block our return to Disney. Even as we accept the problems in that world of reality - heat, long lines, a need for patience, the cost, the temptation to just shout out against the imperfections or even buy into them for an advantage it might confer on 'your group' as opposed to 'others'.

There is a fantasy world where all the imperfections of reality are erased, fixed, in a positive manner. Then there is the real world, where even fantasy has issues. But we are not banned to attempt to reach that fantasy world, that Disney world, even as we accept that fantasy is not real. Furthermore, we must clean up the scat, teach some manners, and tame the grizzlies before they chomp us to death, for that will be the fate of our country as we know it, as we wish to improve it should the negative, oppositional, reality denying crowd have their way.