ON THE EDGE

      First thing when I woke up was to check the news. Who won? Found out we were on an edge again, Warnock a winner and Ossoff too close to call. That in itself is a victory against a powerful Georgia machine, especially for a quite new kid on the block. Even should we be disappointed, we still have acquired a tie in the Senate and a tie breaker in the person of our VP elect, Kamala Harris. And herein is the edge upon which we are standing, ground crumbling beneath our feet, and the only thing to do is to stabilize it and then take new measures to fix the mess. But stabilize first.

That, my friends, is a difficult row to hoe. The United States of America is no longer looked upon by the world as a stable nation. A Democrat in the WH and a majority in both branches of Congress is not necessarily a stabilization on a permanent basis. There are too many splits and cracks in the party itself and its members from right to left must join  together, all giving a bit, compromise - a word long lost from the lexicon lo these past four nasty years.

Can they? Will they? Or will power run through crazed and impatient minds needing so badly to set things right - to pick up the chairs, put them by the tables, and put food on that table and breadwinners around it, with children happily chatting as they eat their fill and ramble on about school that day. The temptation to cram through all sorts of hasty bills is strong, but thought must be involved and lots and lots of care. Preparation of defense from crazed extremists on both sides of the political aisle will be urgent but have we the energy to do this. This four year battle has sapped the energies of the nation. 

Nor are we done with immediate issues. DC is filling up with crazed fanatics urged on by a demented toddler who knows he has lost, denied the reality and acceptance of it, whispers and shouts and throws tantrums re coups, military takeovers, shredding the Constitution, treasonous behavior and on and on. Grown men and women - who definitely know better - turned into sniveling craven cowards with no moral spine or compass, losing true north, and the mess they have created is leaving an impermeable mark on the soul of the nation.

So we are on the edge. We need to look deep within ourselves, turn ourselves inside out. Measure our values, those that are left anyway. We must dig through our memories for a time when at least some politicos remembered their oaths to serve and protect, to honor and obey the Constitution, to put country before Party. Dim memories, but nevertheless, still there. Some of us have gone over the edge already, but there are enough remaining to pack down that crumbling edge and rebuild better, stronger, upon it.

Many of us have changed individually along with the changed nature of our country. Good and bad, depending really on the changes, but some of these changes are permanent. Will the Proud Boys fade back into the sewers, the crevices from which they came? Will the anti-fas of violence return to calmer, more reasonable and reasoned ways? Will we discard the good changes along with the bad?

I, myself, have changed. I became far more enmeshed in politics, paying intense attention to its ups and downs, to its changes, to the impending destruction of democracy in this land unless we did something to stop that decline. I found that I had to find other things to do to keep sane during these stressful times during which there were fewer options. Social life was curtailed, movies and theaters, a love in my life, were shut down. Even libraries were shut and then limited and eek! books! Families were kept apart, children fearful of infecting and even causing the death of their older parents and grandparents. These same parents and grandparents longing to hug the physical form of these kids, not only their Zoom images.

We found ways to make do, to even meet on a limited basis with friends and family. It demanded extraordinary measures, but was possible to achieve, safely. And we dug deep within and found new interests and abilities, new hobbies and took pride in what we accomplished.

 Personally, for some strange reason, never before encountered in my life, I had an urge to take up wood crafting, furniture refurbishing and renewal, on a small basis. I have now completed several projects, my work going around the country to family members who asked for them, and my 'workshop' - i.e. living room and dining room table, lanai, and second bedroom, are now filled with projects in progress, those completed and on walls, or awaiting shipping, and the materials and needs of this hobby or more than a hobby? 

I have gained enormous pleasure and pride from it. This is the same pride and pleasure, along with the hard work, the willingness to spend on what we truly need to move forward - this is what we need. But first, clean up the mess from before, keep motives as pure as possible, the surroundings and motivations as pure as possible, and let us all put on American hats, wave American flags, sing American songs, be Americans, one and all, as we move back and off the edge, even as we fix it, extend that edge into more room, more thought and care in our doings and desires.  

Edges can be changed. We need to change it positively, with true patriotism and rational differences of opinion and behavior. Simply put, Mr. Rogers said it all as he sang and removed his outside shoes and put on clean inside shoes and zipped up his sweater, keeping warmth inside. That same warmth, that same attempt to keep things clean - along with the question asked with a hopeful tone, a smile and extended hand - "Won't you be my neighbor?"

BASTA! BASTA!!! BASTA!!!!!

      Basta! Enough! Maspik! Genuck! Spanish, English, Hebrew, Yiddish. The same thing. The same needs. The desperate cries of enough already; how much more, now much farther will you go in the name of destruction of this country? Nine weeks after the election and here I am, still sitting here in the dark, writing alone in the wee hours of the nite, worrying, fretting, nervous as hell, untrusting of all reassurances otherwise, that this demented man, this fascist and his fascistic comrades, his partners in crime, will finally pull the last foundational brick out and down we will go, like a losing game of Jenga. Only this is no game and there is no reset.

The utter gall, the utter treason, the treasonous President who was never ever my president, all have conspired to make a coup no different than those of any banana republic Third world country or, for that matter, the takeover of Hitler and the political shenanigans of Putin, Trump's BFF. The thought that we could be at the last gasps moments of American democracy, the rotten and ugly end to a noble experiment in human history, I just feel as if there is no end, no answer, no cure and no hope.

Sorry, but all the reassurances that the courts have spoken, that the suits are all bogus, that the lawyers need professional rebukes and discipline, that legally, Trump et al are stymied in their efforts, that Pence will not, cannot, legally, refuse to open the envelopes and count the electoral ballots - well, since when does this administration work with legal in mind? The answer to that is a resounding Never!!Ever!! Basta!!! Enough!!

The Devil's Spawn chuckles away in Georgia when asked about his behavior come Wednesday. The brown shirts of Hitler have morphed into the Proud Boys, all ready and charged up to do their Fuhrer's bidding - come to DC, the capital of the nation and run amok. Have fun and not to forget, "I will be there." And the blood will flow. Will the police do their jobs? Will troops be called out? Will the anti fa and basically all democracy supporters clash, Civil War redux with exponential violence and bloodshed and consequences? Or will the Capitol Police be called in to drag Pence the traitor out, replacing him with Grassley and let the country get on with its business. Ask me, well, I have no faith anymore in the right thing. No more.

The answer the deluded, dangerously deluded and implicitly aiding and abetting Trumpites answer all claims of horror at his statements, his efforts to overturn the election, his criminal conversation with Georgia, one of many criminal acts of his during his most awful term in office - well, their answer is that all politicians are inherently no good, evil at heart and the Democrats are no angels. What a fallacious statement. If there are robbers, thieves, gangbangers and white collar crooks galore in a city, does that make it okay to make excuses for the next one who joins in the party or does he have to pay for his own individual sins? The answer is obvious, but not to Trumpites, those deluded pathetic beings. Those dangerous creatures who keep on their blindfolds, and like the deluded cave dwellers of Plato, think the false, dark shadowed world they live in is the real world and misinterpret everything.

We have so many real problems, almost unsolvable problems that must be tackled, a mess left from and because of Trump and his incompetent bunch of criminals, and we have no more time to waste on his treason. Lock HIM up and throw away the key. How much more can he be allowed to endanger this country, to actually, possibly, succeed in staging a coup? In my head - quite a possibility and that keeps me up at night.

COVID-19 and all variants of it. The busted economy. The crisis of a society left to rot for four years. A population so heavily divided that one doubts that it can ever be realigned fairly. People are being evicted, going hungry, jobless, hopeless, children suffering, here in America - and an apartment in Tribeca sells for $37 million dollars. There is something very wrong in that, very, very, wrong. China. Iran. The Middle East. Genocide on an ongoing basis. Russian interference in our elections and invasions of our computer infrastructure. Climate change. Environmental change. Floods and droughts. Ocean flooding and increased desertification. Too much population to feed and water. Too much greed and incompetence. So much wrong and so little right.

Alex Trebek spoke to his audience after death via a prepared speech for his last few games he hosted. He asked for a kinder, gentler world, for all to reach out. But today, while there are those who do indeed reach out, there are too few who do so in a friendly and helping hand manner but rather have arms and weapons in those outreaching, grasping hands.

I was so hopeful when Biden won. I thought I would be able to stop worrying so, along with so many others who thought as I did. Today, we are all waiting for the Inauguration and G-d willing, and people willing, a peaceful transfer of power, proper indictment and trials of all these crooks and traitors, including Trump and Pence, Pompeo and Barr and all the rest. But will it be? Will it happen? Will we be able to turn our attention to where it so desperately needs to go or will these demented souls continue to push and shove and lie and fight for that which is not there? Which is not theirs.

I would so much rather be a Pollyanna than a Cassandra, but the times rule and I hear the voice of Cassandra, the warnings she spoke of, and I so hope they begin to fade as of today with a defeat of two creeps in  Georgia, a certification already of Biden's win, tomorrow, and an Inauguration on Jan 20. I hope, I pray, I worry, I wonder.  

SLAM!! WENT THE DOOR

      How appropriate at this time of year to talk - or write - of a situation where there is no room at the inn. We are in the midst of several crises where either there should be no room, certainly so, but there is also a situation where there should be, but is not. Both need to reverse the status quo or we are in deeper trouble than we ever anticipated, existential troubles of proportions the likes of which we have never faced before, a battle of principals, ambition, neglect and death.

With the numbers climbing rapidly - no, way beyond that - we apparently are killing off our own population. The other day I said 400,000 before end of month and wow, but that was lowballing it. I can see the figure of half a million dead, and quite realistically and possibly, even probably, way more than that. The situation is that desperate and there is no room at the inn - the hospitals - that are overflowing with patients. Dire medical conditions  other than the virus are being denied entry or are not even going as people are simply afraid. Medical personnel, from EMTs to orderlies, to maintenance to medical people are exhausted, worn out and the energy well is dry. Or sick themselves.

Then we have the long term COVID, the lingering and debilitating aftereffects and the damage to our economy that all this has caused. The same economy that has ramped up evictions - in the middle of the winter - foreclosures, literally, no room at the inn. Slam!!! goes the door to all that is necessary for life. Slam!!! goes the door on hope.

This is the same door we should have opened wide when COVID hit. We should have welcomed in the truth, the scientists with the knowledge to beat it, the companies that would prepare and produce the vaccines, the plans and infrastructure necessary to distribute these vaccines in a timely and orderly manner. Instead we went SLAM!! to the door. Instead, we went SLAM!!! to the people.

There is another door, one that needed to be slammed long ago, five years ago, but certainly, absolutely, four years ago and more so over the years till now. There sits a caricature of a human being in the Oval Office, a man who has opened every door he could find to disgrace, to danger, to disaster for America. He has subverted any principle of democracy, every ounce of trust in too many about the elections and the value of trust in free and defined elections. He has threatened officials who refuse to go bad along with him, even as the smell, the nauseating reek, of rot emanates from the WH in ever increasing amounts.

Time and again, never ending streams of vitriol poured from his mouth. Time and again we saw one after the other, falling under his sway, afraid of him, and the GOP deteriorated into a political party too closely related to fascism, to overthrow of government, to the end of us. Too often did we see grown men tolerate tantrums and behavior they would not accept from their own toddlers at home, let alone a grown man supposed to be the leader of the free world. Time and again he evidenced strong proof of his growing dementia, his strong mental illnesses, his so total incompetence for the job. Yet, the GOP not only went along, but buried themselves in the same muck, enabling, appeasing the man who would bring down this country and its democracy - and who continues to do so.

This is a door which certainly should have never been opened and once done so, should have been slammed back, with vigor. This country has no room at the inn for the 140 or more Representatives, the 12 or more Senators, the Vice President!!! who would gladly, happily, toss this country on the garbage heap of history for the sake of their ambitions, stinking, reeking ambitions that corrode every door that needed to be kept shut, allowed no entry to them and indeed, they should have been pushed out of that inn. They needed to be and continue to be condemned, along with their master or puppet - not sure at this junction- and charged with treason, for they are indeed traitors, long ago having crossed the entry slab into that dangerous room.

We have opened and closed doors in exactly the wrong combination. Even today we still have people who see the numbers, see the bodies, hear the stories, watch the tears flow, and yet they continue against all reality to cry hoax as they wreak havoc upon us. There is no room at the inn for this, for it is the proverbial shouting of Fire! falsely, in a crowded theater. Surely, we are allowed to protect ourselves, insure our safety, defuse the hacking of other governments into our infrastructure. These people have turned precautions into political deadly footballs, meshing the wrong doors, meshing incompetence at the arrival desk, and here we are.

Come, he says, he urges. "It will be wild," he rants gleefully, as he thinks ahead to his imagined version of blood on our streets and retention of his office. He will not see reality. But he will have to go. That is a definite, but the GOP continues to reap the deadly dangers they have sowed and now some wonder what the heck they have done. Beware, it is often said, of what you wish for. Well, they ignored that warning and here we are with wrong doors incorrectly open or shut. Sir Walter Scott warned us re practicing to deceive  - in the vernacular - it ain't good!

I despair of and for our country. I wonder if there is any true way to stage a comeback. I wonder if or ever the GOP will face the truth of what they have done. I wonder if the people who fell under the witchy spell of Trump and his enablers, his sniveling moral cowards, if they will ever be able to return to sanity, to acknowledge the damage they allowed and even cheered on. I wonder if and when we will ever learn how to open and close doors properly.

HORSERADISH

     ."To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish" This is an old Yiddish proverb and just think of its applicability to the world of today, the world we live in, like it or not. Horseradish, for those not in the know, is a red or white semi solid sauce used on food to enhance taste, especially gefilte fish. It can be sweet or truly powerfully strong, depending upon additives to the original base of the root vegetable. No one could beat the hand ground white horseradish my Zaydie made for Passover! No one could stop the tears raining down the face as the mouth was set on fire. And isn't that the name of the game!

That is the name of the game of life living in  a horseradish world. Life now can be very bitter, so strongly so that we are overwhelmed by it and its problems. From  a death rate that is climbing exponentially, and 400,000 seems now to be an underestimate as we already crossed 350,000 dead, and the hospital system of LA is on its last toe, never mind its last leg. This situation is mirrored all over the country as the bottles of bitterly strong horseradish fly off the shelves of life. People are dying again at a crazy rate, families are gasping with shock, stunned by the sudden death of their loved ones, alone, comfortless in a sterile hospital bed, and that horseradish is going down the throats with a burning such as we have never seen before. 

Unfortunately, we are not alone. No, not the aliens that people are once again reporting on sightings, but not alone in the dire presence of death and dying. For example, Israel has lost almost 4,000 dead to this pandemic and in a country of 9 million, think of the percentages and know how large a number, how big a blow it is. Such is the fact all over the world, now living in a bitterly acerbic bottle of horseradish. It appears that the bottles of sweet horseradish are nowhere to be found. Will they return? Can they return in our new world?

In such a dangerously ill and afflicted world there are more bitter states of being to follow. We have an acknowledgement that the world as we knew it prior to 2020 will never return. There is talk of a Great Reset, a change in the dynamics and paradigms of the world's nations. There will be a global consensus in attitude, a realization that lines on a map are not walls that stop viruses and other ills. It is time, people say, that we recognize this and fight dangers together, pool resources, and grow together in an endangered world, the horseradish world we worms live in. 

It is all the more complicated and threatening when we realize that there has been a reaction both before and after this new thinking. It is almost time here to learn the new salute, as a group of Republicans, if they can have any ownership of that name, as they have so shamed that name, shamed its leader of all time, Lincoln, have attacked the very foundation of democracy right here in America. 

It is the most blatant, obvious and dangerous attempt to install dictatorship in the country, one wherein a demented man will be indulged, allowed to throw tantrums in private and online, even as the rest of the conspirators run the country. Away with voting rights. Away with equality. Away with civil rights. Away with any attempts to treat people fairly. Away with justice. On with a ruling class, a new American declared aristocracy worse than even Metternich could have designed!!

There is now a group of Senators and ones soon to be who are advocating, despite all realities, all thrown out lawsuits, all reasonable answers, despite everything, who are determined to overthrow this country, and that includes the man I have been warning about all along - the Devil's Spawn, Pence.

As far as I am concerned, these people are traitors to this country. They have advocated locking up people and shooting them, execution style, and well, they need to look in the mirror. All I hear nowadays is that there is nothing they can do "legally", but so what! Since when do these people stop at the line that demarcates and separates legal from illegal. The overthrowing of a legal and legitimate government is treason, is illegal, and yet these traitors are girding themselves openly for their attempt on January 6, the culmination of all their false and dangerous accusations and campaigns to screw all Americans, including their deluded supporters who will be the first to suffer lack of economic resources, health care, educational opportunities and a future for their children. Does anyone out there realize this, understand this, feel the deep and abiding ache in the gut, or are we drowning in that bottle of horseradish that the world now resembles?  

The violence that accompanies overthrows of government is already here. The Proud Boys await the day when they will riot and terrorize in DC. Their allies await all over the country. The homes of both Democratic and Republican so called leaders have been vandalized, by angry and hopeless citizens who feel the despair in which they are immersed, the bitter taste of that horseradish, wondering where the sweet variety has gone and why it has gone?

It has disappeared because too many have become complacent and believe that we need not be vigilant in protecting democracy in this country and around the world where it is quickly becoming an endangered species, almost at the extinction level. It has disappeared because we do nothing until finally we will not be able to do anything.

People, from the heart, I plead with you to be awake and alert, to understand the existential danger to democracy that now exists. For too long and for too many times, Jews have lived in worlds of horseradish, unstable worlds of danger and disaster, of uncertainty and death, of hopelessness and despair. We have seen the Jewish people almost wiped out time and time again, yet the world has learned nothing and genocide in its many realities continues on. Nor does it stop, for hatred and violence feed themselves, on themselves and consume all in its path, even as the horseradish turns more and more bitter, unsure of footing, and an end to all that is sweet and joyful in life.

We have already begun this new year with a continuation and worsening of 2020, the year we all hated and endured for too long. Let us clean off these miserable bitter bottles and substitute the sweet ones, the ones that provide good taste, good enhancement of the pleasures of good food and families and friends around with whom to share the joys of life. The train is leaving. Which cargo will be left behind for us to find? Time is running out to find out and do the right thing. Now.

  

MADE IT?

     Did we really? Are we over the hump or is it not even in sight. Will there be a sea change over the next few months or are we smoking or drinking too many meals? Is it a pipe dream or is it real? Can we make a difference or are we caught in currents over which we have no control? Do we take on the mien of an optimist or shall we walk around with the frown lines of a pessimist? Do we even have that luxury of making a choice?

There is proof on both sides of the matter. At first glance we see no hope. Speeches re the pandemic, now driving our shattered economy, our broken spirits, our dreams turned nightmares, are securely in the pessimist camp. Almost 20 million infections and growing at an amazingly overwhelming rate. We will hit the figure of 400,000 dead within a matter of days if this continues. There are spoilers of vaccines, errors of injections, a broken system of transport and inoculations, and all this has to be done double! Based on the current situation, bad news!! Amazingly bad.

But on the other hand we have the optimism, the attached to reality optimism of Biden and Harris. Yes, it will get worse before it gets better, but the better is in sight, is possible, is realistic if, if, we make that effort to actually work towards it. The necessity of it, the determination to secure that goal is evident in the words of Jennifer Lopez last night. "2020 is almost over. We made it."

We also have reminders around us, if we but look hard and long, and can find remnants of a more decent, shall we say, friendlier, less warlike political world. There is evidence that there are still people out there with dignity, who sigh, as so many of us do, over the shocking lack of standards re governmental honesty, role modeling, anything positive re governing and its adherents. Adam Schiff is such  man, and his seemingly mild, "It's not Okay" says it all. “You might think it’s OK,” he proposed to his Republican colleagues. Then, more in sorrow than in anger, he said, “But I don’t think it’s OK.” It contains within those three words the angst, the anxiety, the resignation, the desperation and the determination to stop this, to turn the country around, to take the chance that we have been given.

There is some hope, a glimmer of hope, a tiny dot of it, that there are Republicans who will grow  spine and a moral sense of conduct and beliefs and act on them. Ben Sasse is such a one, though he has too often talked the talk without the follow through of walking the walk. However, at this point, any sign is good. “Let’s be clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage,” Mr. Sasse wrote. “But they’re wrong — and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.”

What he says is so true and unfortunately not enough of us see the truth of it. The GOP, under the destructive leadership, if it can be called that, has attempted to break the democracy of this country and has just about succeeded. The crisis will not end with the Inauguration, but will rather continue, and we must be ever vigilant to stamp and stomp out these fires that endanger us so. Freedom, yes - rebellion - no!

Ominous rumbles in the Mideast. The president turning on Jared (HA!) China and Russia treating us as an insignificant nation. A broken and shattered economy. A new generation looking into a future that seems hopeless for and to them. A country which has turned its back on its welcoming immigrants.  A deterioration of American can do spirit, work together spirit. A period of decades needed to clear the benches of incompetent backwards thinking Trump appointed judges and the damage they are doing to our ethos.

People reaching out with food, with shelter, with tutoring, with job offers. A new and enthusiastic generation concerned with politics and how to use it to make the system better, more responsive, more constructive rather than destructive. A new awareness re the climate and the environment. A growing distaste for the ugly hatred that has become PC. Vaccines and better planning. New hopes. New dreams. New possibilities.

The choice is clearly and starkly there. We need to make it. We need to make the right one. It is as simple as that. Making it to 2021 is not magic. Nor is the hard slog ahead of us. But it can be done. It truly can. It must. Else all these sacrifices have been for naught. I cannot believe that. I will not believe that. Nor should you.

AS THE WORLD TURNS

     Ah, if only the world could turn like the soap opera, always solving each issue even as the next one pops up. Cliff hanging problems are left hanging but for a short time, enough for a season or a fraction of one, but always available to refresh numbers and stats. Pure manipulation in a benign manner, as we all know that this is not real.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, take your pick, we live in a real world where manipulation is not so benign, and indeed, is too often, malevolent in intention and activation. The manipulators often go unpunished, unfazed by their unveiling, the awareness of what they have done just waved away, a mere blip on the road to where they aim to get. Not even a bump is felt as their wheels ride over it.

This soap operatic world of ours is often so bizarre that one has to laugh, even as the tears of frustration and anger roll down the face. Time and again we are presented with pictures of figures running for office accompanied by questionable people. From Trump's pictures with Neo Nazi and White Supremacist figures or women who accuse him of molestation, to Loeffler and her pet Neo Nazi former Klansman - all the while denying they even know the person. Even when called on these glaring bleeps in their campaign life and political beliefs, they wave it off, knowing that no one will care enough to follow up.

Surely the world needs an application of WD40 to its axle and axis if it is to continue to turn, a good turning process, one which keeps us on track, rather than going awry and askew. However, it seems that we do not get and will not get this oil treatment until too late - or maybe it already is. The world does keep on turning and our cliffhangers are not solved so benevolently and promptly as the ones on TV. Would that the population at large would pay as much attention to real life as they do to the TV.

Yet maybe there is a glimmer of hope to be seen if one looks carefully. More than 2.5 million Georgians have voted already in the special Senatorial run off election. The GOP is running scared, bending over backwards, delving  deep into fake sewage in their running scared state of being. Trump joins in wholeheartedly as false non-existent siblings are newly born, false accusations tweeted in insane postings, tired accusations, are repeated ad infinitum ad nauseum, but their madness continues. The biggest threat they feel they have is the one of uh-oh, here comes socialism - this even as the government sends out stimulus checks - socialism in reality. Nor do I sees anyone rejecting those checks on political principles!! Nor do I see the fatcat huge agricultural companies who squashed so many independent farmers turning down the huge subsidies they get from the government. Uh-oh again, for this is socialism in practice yet no one seems to object as they bank those checks.

The world turns round and round, spinning away, almost uselessly at times, as the only thing that changes is actually nothing. The corruption continues. The shocks come at so quick a rate that they lose their impact. The heroic to be trusted Secret Service is found to be contaminated as well by political beliefs and needed to be changed as Biden comes into office. Why? For there was deep tainting of some agents who worked political stances into their responsibilities. With emotions so crazed and electric who knows what they might have done - or not. Tarnished heroes, yet another blackening of a legend of America.

The squeaks grow longer and more agonizing. A hospital worker deliberately, mind you, took out enough vials to inject 500 people, spoiling them, even as the program itself is so slow as to cause one to wonder if the world is turning at all. Or perhaps going in the wrong direction! The amounts of doses are too few, the distribution too slow, the availability simply not there, the planning never truly existed, and systems were never truly thought out as to infrastructure and implementation. So phone systems crash within minutes, people are confused and becoming frantic, and all they get is a "Be patient. Call next week."

All the while, our so not esteemed leader is off to golf every damned day. Swinging that skinny stick which accomplishes nothing for the country, nothing to set the world back on its true axis. Nothing but harm to us, to the people of this country. Instead of cooperation with nations of the world, we set up ironic competitions, putting us at odds with each other at a time when cooperation is so urgently needed.

Brothers and sisters, for under the skin we are all that, we need to work together to put this world back on its proper spin. It will take much hard work, much swallowing of pride, even shame, if we are to do this and do it properly. Can we put aside the soap opera attitudes long enough to do the job? Can we ever relearn the truth, that it matters, that it counts, that it always will be revealed? Can we learn once again that corruption is not good for us. That cronyism, nepotism are poisonous to the system of government of a country? 

We have much to learn and much heaving to get the world to spin properly. Roll up the sleeves, settle down to hard work and we will achieve. We can do this. If we but try. If we but remember when we were once a country united with differing opinions but not crazed enough to slit our neighbor's throat. Turn down the noise and settle down to work. Not rhetoric.

 

AW, C'MON!

      Two days. Just two days more. That was the prevailing attitude yesterday as people spoke of ending this horrible year. Honestly, to me it seems akin to the magical thinking of toddlers. If one covers the eyes, then one disappears. Not seeing the other person in the game means not being seen either. So they think and that is fine for toddlers, kind of like the thinking of our illegitimate President, but a mite more mature!

However, we are supposed to be grownups, are we not? We are supposed to remember to confront reality, accept the way it is and then work from there. Instead, though, we have the magical thinking that belongs in a fairy tale setting, a happily ever after ending, despite all the clues pointing to a different ever after. Turning that damned calendar page will neither magically nor instantly change the environment, reduce the illness killing off people all over the world, over 326,000 as of yesterday right here in America.

I hate to be a killjoy, and I am just as afraid of the virus as anyone else, hiding, basically, from it since March, but truth is truth. The young do not die we are told and yet how many stories do we read of the young dying. We are getting a handle on it, we are being told, but it seems to me that the handle is not working very well, is it? Example par excellence? Here in Florida, where we appeared to be doomed to be afflicted by the worst politicians ever, we had an instantaneous breakdown of the process to register for an appointment if one were 65 and over. Finally, call back next week was the final answer. That was not the answer Jeopardy would have accepted!! Nor will we! How stupid can one be when setting up an inadequate system when , especially in Florida, where the over 65 population is enormous!! A turn of the calendar page will not cure that incompetence! Nor in the rest of the country.

Perhaps there will be better things after the turn of the calendar page on the 20th of January. Biden has already appointed three leaders to the pandemic issue, trying to get a grasp on it ASAP. Sooooo much better than somebody else we know! But we must remember that there is no magic here. It will take a long, hard, and dangerous slog to get through this virus and its apparently oncoming relatives.

When will we be able to say that we have indeed fought off, thrown off, the awful vibes of 2020? Not as long as people like Trump are elected to office. The man is nuts. Pure and simple. Now he has fallen into an even deeper hole of fantasy by accusing the poor guy from Georgia of having a brother who apparently works for the Chinese, is a spy for them. That sounds terrible, right? One itsy bitsy teeny tiny problem, but we won't let that interfere with the idiocy of Trump's camp who will accept this statement whole hog, will we? There is NO brother!! But never let fact or truth get in the way of fantastical accusations! Trump speaketh!!

Nor will January 1, 2021, change the attitude of so many re 'others'. Here is my theory about the hate epidemic that has swept the world. We have allowed the noisy nonthinkers to prevail with and via their noise. Look around and one can see groups of mixed kids and people, Black, White, Brown, Red, whatever and all in-between. Here in the South one sees interracial couples and families all the time and no one gives it a second thought or glance or even a first one. 

So what is the problem? US. We have allowed all the squeaky wheels, the ones with no working intellectual brain cells, the ones with axes to grind, the squeaky wheels, to be the apparent real picture of America and the world. Wrong! Yes, there are plenty of that type, too many, and for shame already! Enough! But, a great big but, if we sit back and allow them to make lots more noise, none of it joyous, then, well we will get what we earn and that is truly unfortunate, to say the least. This will not be cured with a new year or calendar date. It will only be cured with a defined campaign against it. Beginning with adults who pass on hatred to their children. Not an easy  task, but it can happen, with lots and lots of hard truths and work.

C'mon! Let us stop and think and face and accept reality. No magic cure. No magic bullet that will kill all negative thoughts and beliefs. No magic pill that one can swallow to negate all prejudice and hatred, that can morph all the negative cops into fellow companions with the good guys who are getting a bad rap. No easy-peasy device that will reassure Black people that they will not be targeted, nor Brown people speaking Spanish somewhere to be questioned. That will take work - lots and lots of it. And while we are at it, folks, the biggest growing issue of hatred is the growing rise of anti-Semitism, on campuses, in violence, in dive bars, wherever one can find willing ears looking for scapegoats rather than looking for real answers.

What this turn of the page can give us is a renewed sense of optimism, a refreshed sense of the American we can do it spirit. While the slate can never be wiped thoroughly clean, it can get a darned good and effective job, so let us dig in, roll up the sleeves, take a god stiff drink of vanishing clean water, breathe deeply of the polluted air that we must address, and get to work. There is much to be done, much time demanded, and more calendar pages than one or one year. But again, c'mon and join in. That is the only way we can succeed in changing the meaning of all the days to come.

NEW ONSET PSYCHOSIS

      As if this year has not been bad enough, we are now, with three days left to close it out and bang! Yet another piece of bad news and perhaps one that explains a lot. Maybe. Perhaps. It seems that a growing number of COVID-19 survivors, if that is the correct term, present with a most frightening effect after several weeks, even months of recovery. 

They are fine, go back to work, join in family activities, all is great. Then boom! A little voice begins to tell them things, horrible things, terrible accusations, distortions of reality, all believable to them. Even as they know that something is wrong, this cannot be, they are plagued by the horrors this voice is telling them, always in their heads, terrorizing them and their loved ones.

Of all the aftereffects of COVID, this one frightens me the most. To suddenly lose oneself in a psychotic nightmare of a world, where who you were is no longer who you are, even as you know it is not so, you cannot help but believe it and even, in worst case, act on it. Frightening, yes? But wait, for there is more.

In a world gone off its tracks in this most awful of years, think how many of the leaders of the world have tested positive for the virus. Think how many have recovered after supposedly mild cases. Think how many of them seem mad, not angry, but crazed in their thoughts, plans and deeds. They bark at each other rather than talk and negotiate. They threaten, frightening threats, push nuclear arms races again, and use every new discovery of mankind in twisted fashion to harm other countries.

And, obviously, I look at Trump, taking a different perspective. The man has always been off, probably damaged by a dysfunctional childhood home, always plagued by both an inferiority complex and a vision of himself as as hero, the biggest winner of them all. Perhaps he even suffered one of the earliest cases of the virus, before we realized it was here, and that would explain his insane behavior and statements. His mad campaign over the results of the election in November is simply a symptom and a result of the virus. Hmm. Ya' think?

At the very least it makes it clearer, easier to explain, if not tolerate, his insane behavior. He crushed the very Party he had crushed already, as he made it over in his image - his god complex? He already had them terrorized to oppose him, to take any independent step whatsoever lest he not like that step and then the world would cave in on them, Chicken Little running around the Capitol building in droves!

How else do we explain him, and others of his circle, who engaged in treasonous behavior. One could question the water, the food, the air, the plastics, or we could simply be honest and say that the grown adults of this nation's political world had gone bonkers. Worse than that, a large potion of the nation's population had gone along for the ride, ramping up negative emotions, literally murderous behavior, and a growing inability to recognize reality, a mad inclination to pursue that which was already lost.

Am I writing this tongue in cheek? Maybe. Maybe not? But in this topsy-turvy world of the past year, nothing is out of reach, nothing impossible in a world gone mad. Putin has his ass kissed obsessively by Trump, who then sells the country down the river and allows Russia to attack us in cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns of huge proportions, interfere with our elections, like a third world banana republic! Tell me what else explains this and I will give it serious consideration.

So any, too many, people have become shapeless blobs in a mental and moral sense. They lost structure, spines, balls, let alone brass ones, character and morality. The ability to think independent of Trump became an impossibility. And so we suffered. And so the world suffered. And here we are in the worst economic crisis, one that promises - or threatens - to turn into one worse than the Great Depression, never mind the Great Recession. People are homeless, evicted, foreclosed upon, jobless, foodless, unable to care for family, unable to educate and feed and clothe and shelter their kids and hope of improvement is dim and far away. The numbers of dead, dying, sick, and the increased rationing of medical care is horrendous, unthinkable and yet it is so because we allowed the lies to exist and continue to falsely allay fears. That is until the deniers and their deluded believers fell ill and died too. Or recovered and became psychotic in a new syndrome.

All I know is that none of this year has any logical explanation. People lost their minds and became reckless in so many ways. Their mooring lines were brutally cut and the seas they were then sailing were rough and unforgiving. Worst of all, there appears to be no end in sight to this year. The calendar page may turn, and the days and weeks ands months will roll into each other, the dead filling the container trucks, families setting more unused place settings at the table, and all we are promised is a rough ride ahead and new strains coming down the pike. We are nowhere close to administering the present vaccines to the populations of the world, and yup, there it is, the new strain. Testing must be done now to see if the present vaccines will protect against that - and other strains right behind.

It might be that Rip Van Winkle had the right idea and went to sleep for twenty years The problem is that the world was not so different, was it? We need to face up to our problem rather than deny and run away. Maybe we do need to test the mental stability and capacity of people after the virus, especially the leaders and legislators of countries. For sure, it would not have hurt if we had done that to Trump long, long ago! If you are surprised at his crazed behavior, threats, and statements now - where the hell were you for the past four years?!

Sorry. Cannot resist, sad as it is to say it. Told ya' so! I really did.

May the new year that is arriving before we know it, be filled with recovery, with hope, with generosity of spirit and mind, with answers that help unite a divided country and a troubled world. May we return to full health in all ways, learn to live in peace with our neighbors, near and far, and may we all know prosperity and certainty in meeting the needs of us all.

JUST A THOUGHT - PEHAPS A GUILTY ONE, A BIT ANYWAY

     What a nice weekend. The days were quiet, barely any crisis around that needed immediate fixing, a time for reading, for idle chat, for finishing odds and ends of projects and preparing for a new one, and meeting with friends. Nice. Simple. Enjoyable. Did not solve the problems of the world nor pay much attention to it, and therein one finds the guilt.

With so many people at desperate ends, money all gone, pantry shelves bare, food pantries limiting distribution, cold hitting all over with  shelter at a premium to find and be safe, education in a huge crisis situation and how to deal with it unanswered, there I was, puttering around, laughing, accomplishing not much of anything, other than having a really nice weekend. So paint me guilty. I guess I deserve it, but still and all, it was a weekend that I needed - to refresh my soul and recharge my spark plugs.

Last night, while doing the last minute things that all women find to do before finally turning in, I wondered what had happened to me. How could I not have paid attention to the stimulus crisis. How could I not have paid  attention to the ridiculous crisis of a game of chicken Trump was playing. He could give a damn re the amount of a check. He was simply continuing to play out his insane and dangerous attempts to  cause troubles before he finally exits stage left. Can't happen a second too soon for me, for the country, for the world.

So how did I ignore all this all weekend? Yes, peripherally I knew it was there, even commented a bit in a conversation, but really..... And I finally got it. I had enough of that man and the hypocrites of the GOP. I had enough of their sudden ability, their rediscovered ability, to say no, to criticize Trump, even as he continued, as was said, to cheer "for an undemocratic coup". Finally! Finally someone else was warning us, using the word coup, of an attempt to overthrow the government of this nation.

I needed a break. We all need a break. But this is not really the time to take a break, for until this man is gone from office, until he does not have the power of the Presidency in his hands, until he is physically out of the WH, until that moment, there is no safety for us. No haven for us. And even when gone, unless he and his abettors are punished, tried and convicted and jailed, he especially, until that happens, we are in danger of showing others of his ilk that rebellion and overthrow of government is possible. Just have to refine the methodology a tad and there ya' go!!

So, back to the news. Back to that dangerous ass of a man. Back to cursing out the legislators who failed to uphold their responsibilities. Back to wondering when, if ever, the vaccine will be coming my way, wondering, with this infection and death rate, if I will be able to keep hiding from it, survive until I do get that elusive vaccine! Oy, where's my paintbrush? My sander? 

Folks, we are all tired, so deep bone tired. There is an enormous feeling of a kind of relief that this year will be over in three days. Yet, honestly, really, does a turn of the page of a calendar mean anything other than remembering to change the date if we write a letter or check? Or celebrate another year of age? Really and truly, does that matter at all or is there something unseen that will arise. Perhaps a feeling of hope, of optimism. Perhaps a feeling that despite the awful winter we are being warned of, of the awful numbers of dead that will rise, perhaps, just perhaps, there is a tiny slit of light appearing a long way down the tunnel, but nevertheless, there it is. I hope so. I hope we change our behavior. I hope those hopelessly lost and misguided Trumpers find their way back from their darkness. They seem to now want the vaccine whereas before they were thorough Trumpian anti-vaxxers. 

Perhaps, just perhaps... Perhaps this country will find its path to its center again, to balance itself, to be unto the world what it was meant to be. I plead guilty of taking the weekend off. However, mitigating circumstances prevailed. Without that break, a sanity break, I, and all others cannot continue to fight this battle. So, not guilty! Ready to get back on that horse until I finally can put it back in the corral for good.

 

CAN I? WOULD I? WILL I? DARE I? OH, WHY THE HELL NOT?!

     I now find myself temporarily without a project to work with. Not that there are not any in the list, but there are steps that need to be taken before I can get down and dirty in the mess of it all. So here I sit, and there I sat, yesterday, thinking about the next steps and the near future of my newfound craze? talent? addiction? or whatever term one can apply. Meanwhile I am excited at the thought that G-d willing, each of my grandchildren and children will have a piece of my making. A new tradition? Hopefully. I should last that long!!

So what's up now? Of late, I have been mulling over the idea of creating my own work of art (ha!) or figment of my imagination, presentation, representational of thoughts in my head - whatever. But it will be totally mine. Yes, the pieces I create are distinctly mine, signed and one of a kind for the most part. But an original piece of art? An abstract piece? Think my high school art teacher would faint if she read this! I think I will faint, for I have no clue as to where or how this interest and ability arose. I feel like fainting at times!

So, back to the thoughts of mine. Am I nutso to think I can? Am I to emulate the little engine that could, muttering all the while, "I think I can, I think I can", until it changes to I know I can? Madness, I think to myself, and yet, there is that itch, that niggling little thought that will not go away, but rather keeps growing in intensity and need. Oh, it might never come to fruition, even if I start to work on it in between other projects, but, but, maybe.....?

So, yes, why not? I look to the world at large and think, why not? If I am mad, well, there are many people out there who are definitely mad and yet look at them. Trump acts as if he is President, but not really. Called unhinged, a spoiled and entitled frat boy, a danger to his GOP - and shame on all the mad people there who enabled all this mess - and I think, HA! Madness is no impediment. To paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling on one's back for ages, well, that is madness, and yet look at what still exists.

Now know that I am not comparing myself to any brilliantly talented artist or craftsman or woman. I am a teeny tiny dot on that line of measurement, somewhere near the bottom, I am sure, but again, why not? I am not attempting to take over a country, kill its inhabitants and proclaim myself  Ruler for Life, or Arbiter of Fates. Yet people have done and are still doing that. So again, why not? Nothing I do will shake up the world, only my little world, so.... And that is it. I have talked myself into it. I will continue to gather the woods I think I need for this piece, which actually has no shape or display look or tangible presentation in mind. Yet the wood needs to be there if and when I need it.

People out there. Listen to me. I swear that before I started this - and why remains a deep dark unknown even to me secret - I did not and still do not possess a whit of artistic ability. I still draw stick figures, my humans do not look human and as for animals, well, pity the poor things. My houses are still peaked roofs and the tree beside it is still that ubiquitous apple tree with a round growth of leaves. The round sun is smiling from the top right of the page with sunrays emanating from it, always and forever. See, my teachers despaired of my drawings. Somehow they never got hung up on the bulletin board. Hmm, wonder why?

In the midst of all the mess of national life, what I do is of no importance. Yes, it is to me and to my kids. They indulge me in my delusions, even as these delusions turn out pretty damn well, if I do say so myself! So why not? People are dying in droves. Ove 332,000 dead and another almost 200,000 predicted by mid or late January. Getting dangerously close to 2 million - 2 million! - infected and who knows what the long term consequences are, to people, economy, even trust. Vaccines are promised, I am certainly checking off many of the boxes, from age to morbidities and yet, no news as to when, where, how, which one, or even how the process will work or if there is even a process to speak of! Do I bring my Epi-pen, as I have had anaphylactic reactions to various insect bites? In the vernacular - nobody knows nuttin'!

So why not? Why waste time I may not have? Why waste time that I can share with Gerry? Why waste time when something I make can give someone a bit of pleasure, with a beautiful, unusual, and useful piece of art, of creation, be it table, stool, blanket ladder, decorated crate or whatever. Why should I not dare to do something, to step out of my comfort zone? There is no reason why, so here I am and here I will stay until whatever. The future, particularly at my age with my issues and the issues of the world, the future is certainly uncertain and certainly of limited duration. Thus, I will do what my heart now tells me to do and forge ahead, try out new things, attempt new challenges and what will be, will be.

Join me. Let us make 2021 ever so much better than 2020 was. We all need hope and joy. We all need to find an interest as other interests have suffered. We all need to feel useful, to have good come out of bad. Bake a cake. Sew an outfit. Knit a sweater. Do needlepoint. Buff up. Staff a food pantry. Tutor a child or an adult. Carve and create with wood, metal or stone. Whatever takes your fancy - as long as it is legal -  do it. Just do it. It is fun. It really is and you might be very surprised at what happens.

 

TREE HUGGER?!

     Okay, so I have not yet walked into a forest facing a ruthless clearcut end of life, but I certainly have moved closer to that, and understand the emotions and thoughts involved much better. I have always been one who worried re the natural wonders and the small and large wonders of Nature, but never bought in to the extreme edges of conservationists. I still do not, but the quarantining and isolation of COVID-19 certainly helped push me that way.

Weirdly enough, I have found that in 'old age' I have discovered some newly functioning brain cells, hereto idle, that have taught me more about the beauty of Nature, the infinite varieties of trees, their colors, patterns, their awesome beauty, so I now wax rhapsodic re woods and try to create with them. Yes, I am using varieties of woods to do the woodworking, but I try to patronize those vendors who use every scrap, who recycle wood already in use, who treasure the beauty of woods as much as I do. So, no, I am not going to chain myself to a tree - bad back and all - but I am more aware, more "woke", shall we say, to the need to conserve and value this gift that we have ben blessed to receive.

Appreciation of gifts we have received, worthy of them or not, has also caused me to stop and think about another gift I have received simply by virtue of living here in CV. I know I worry about our future as a viable community. I fret about the incompetence at the top, but also see some others, old and new, stepping up to the plate and have hope. It is a wonderful place to live and has allowed me to share in a friendship that has enriched my life, and for that, at the end of year accounting, I am ever so grateful and appreciative.

Friends are important. One need not have a huge  number of them, merely some good and true ones. In that regard, I am so lucky. Living here has enabled me to pick up older friendships grown  distant due to life, reunited again, to make new friends, to share in concerns, happiness, sadness and help each other as we face the vagaries and trials of life, especially as we are tested by such a year as 2020.

I want to write of one group of friends that has been an unexpected pleasure and a main supportive column of my life. This is not to put down any other group, but this particular friendship circle, shall we say, is different. It began years ago, earlier in my life here at the Village, and continued on with time. A group of us, women, somehow began to meet together every other week, to join together in laughter, in concerns, in good times. Why? Cannot explain it, especially to myself, as these were women way outside my life experiences. We all were different. Yet alike at the same time. 

Over time, the group began to shape out into a nucleus of permanent attendees. People who shared other times together or not, for that did not matter, not at all. Unfortunately, time has robbed us of several friends. We miss them. For sure I know that I do. Each and every woman of this unusual conglomeration of friends, is a person I admire and treasure, a true gift. We have confided in each other, shared life with each other, cared for one another, got to know the people in our lives. Some of them, perhaps unknown to them, became my mentors, accompanied me into new endeavors and I became a better person for that.

In this mess of a year, mess of a past four years, a deadly pandemic, we have, at least for me, grown even closer, more tight knit, even as the group has been whittled down to a mainstay of four, with others coming and going depending on the time of year and health. I look forward to our now weekly, safely distanced, meetings. We laugh, we despair at the state of the country and the world, have our own solutions for these problems, and simply enjoy each other. Bugged by some health issues this year, they have buoyed me, keeping me steady in rough seas.

Blessed as I am with a number of circles of friendships, with a wonderful family, this particular group has become and remains special. This is a time of year when we take stock, scan our columns of assets and debits, and I come out with a strong asset account. This group, what it means to me, is an asset that I would not trade even for a winning lottery ticket!! Word!!

This past year, these past four years, the world has gone mad. Three quarters of this country, and I am being conservative here, appear to have descended into various states of mental illness, from sheer and deep depression to hatred and bias, to despair, to an acceptance and emulation of behavior they once would have spurned. It tested old friendships and even family ties. There was no normal anymore, nor hopes of finding our way back. Perhaps there will never be a return to that old normal, but G-d willing, we will all come to our senses and rebuild with a better one, all the better for our experiences, even as we mourn those taken from us.

We will all come to recognize that the deep desires of peace among nations, among friends, the need to be sure of and for our families, should reign supreme, taking precedence over all. It will be a time when we recover, as one person put it, from a year "of economic, physical, and emotional devastation". 

So whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah,  Kwanza, other holidays, or none at all, we are in this together. We all want peace, we want love, we want unity in our diversity, we want freedom and equality, and we want our people, those who are so crucial to a good life.

You ladies know who you are. Sorry to embarrass you. But you are a blessing in my life, one I am ever so grateful for. As we Jews have a saying, to a 120 (years) may we live, continue, and enjoy. And no yelling at me on Sunday for writing this!

 

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

     I read. I listen and do it all over again. My head shakes no all by itself, as the mind refuses to accept. All the while, disjointed fragments of song run through the ears, earworms, all testifying to the unreal world of today. It is as if someone gathered a playlist of every phrase that describes the crazy upside down world of the present and who knows about the future. The wise ones though, figure the future is no better than the present, for too much wastage, danger, irrevocable comments and actions have taken place.

So, as the old band echoes through my head with "Burn down the house!", I also hear a modified version of It's a Grand Night for Singing" - but the skies are not blue and the grandness of it all is apparent only to the liars and loyalists and criminals, oh my! That refers to the convicted, confessed and jailed, liars, spies, traitors, war criminals, tax frauds, cheaters, treasonous loyalists to Trump, rather than to the country who all have received pardons, used by that madman in an obscene twist of its initial meaning and use. 

Meant for clemency, for innocence, for timely recognition of a need and deserving of a pardon, instead we have people who kill others, people who cheat this country, people who willing betray this country - and who have already done just that - receiving obscenely issued pardons from an obscenely compromised illegitimate president attempting to stir rebellion in the country, initiate not only a war of words, but a war of flesh and blood. Indeed, and in fact, the early stages of that have already been front and center. That is the time and the scene for the arsonists to come along and intensify the fire that is burning down the house- our house! The house of Abraham, Martin, and John.

This land is your land, this land is my land - but oh, no, it is no longer that situation. This land, we are being told, belongs only to those who profess a hateful program, one where color makes a huge difference, where differing opinions are not welcome. One where sects, outliers of religion, force their opinions, foist them, upon others who differ and those people then become the "others", unworthy of their citizenship or of any stay in this country. Told over and over to leave if we do not like the present horrific state of affairs, the irony of it all would be funny, if not so sad.

The refrain of the song which iterates the hatred one group feels for another, in a seemingly never ending list of a chain of hatred, of incipient violence, tears at the sanity of a normal person. When the refrain repeats, "We didn't start the fire," it is so wrong. Perhaps we did not light the initial match, but we sure as hell allowed that fire to flourish, nourishing it. We fed it with growing amounts of anomie, of hatred, of acceptance of deaths, of blatant liars and cheaters in government, of corruption and cronyism to flourish, for incompetence to be the primary qualification for a position in government. In fact. whether we started it or nourished it, it does not matter, for without the cooperative efforts of those who chopped the logs, undercut the legs of the Constitution, who merrily rolled along changing this country, reworking its basic fabrics, who went along, knowingly, willingly, obsessively, spinelessly, immorally, with a madman - well, they all stink, reek, of that fire, that smoke, those ashes of the country raining down upon us. 

I so foolishly thought that after that madman and his henchmen were defeated in the election, life would have some semblance of joy, some glimmerings of light for our future as a people, as a nation. But those dimly seen lights began to die down, destroyed by life as we know it now. The apparent results of indifference to all others, the who gives a damn attitude towards those not of the privileged, even as these people were convinced otherwise, - astounding! Perhaps we were actually in one of the bizarre worlds found in the Superman comics, for that is how unreal it all became, yet tragically real at the same  time.

I wanted to sing of joy, of the bus whose wheels went round and round, but not as they rolled over people deliberately, hatefully, thrown under those very wheels. I wanted to echo "What a Wonderful World", be it sung by Satchmo or Izzy. I wanted to sing with hope, not only with wishful thinking, along with Judy Garland, about the land and possibilities that await us "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", to set out with joy and optimism along that Yellow Brick Road".

But it was not to be. One of my favorite songs was taken over by these most definitely not true Americans, and "I'm Proud to be an American" became a foul lie. I could not be true to myself and sing out loud, with pride, with patriotism, the national anthem, even as I had hoped I could return to doing so. Now, under increasing threatening remarks and promises of martial action, of "wild" DC protest on January 6, he attempts, again and again, to subvert the truth, to overturn legal and legitimate election results. This man has neither care nor concern for this country. He has sold it down the river time and again, so much so that the mournful tones of "Old Man River" sound loudly in the air.

I would love to walk around with "A Song in My Heart" but will not be able to until this man is out of the WH, the same House he has attempted to burn down, coming that close to doing so! I will gladly join Nancy Pelosi and pull him out "by his hair and his tiny hands and tiny feet" and to that I add his cold heart and his broken mind. And just look at the line behind me, all willing and wishing to insure that he leave, that we get started on the road to recovery, with sane politics, care for people and a normal and effective program to inoculate, to prepare for future pandemics, for they are a coming down the track, with hope and true patriotism.

That is the house for which I can sing "Bless this house, oh Lord, we pray", and I hope you sing along with me. If we start, return to the very basics, the harmony notes will grow naturally, with all voices being absorbed, participating in making a "joyous noise". And all Johnnies will come marching home again.

Happy Holidays to all, whatever  or whichever you celebrate, or do not - your right and simply enjoy the days and count down to D-Day, to when we can have a song in our heart.

 

CONTAGION!!

      I don't know; maybe it's the water? Maybe it is the air we breathe or the food we eat. Whatever it is, it is creating mass circles of contagion, growing every day, and consisting of pure danger to us all. So to what am I referring? Well, first of all, it is not only to what, but also to whom, as this is an evil synergy of both man and nature.

To the obvious. COVID-19, 20, 21 or however many years this thing and its mutations persist in threatening mankind. These types of threats will only grow, a true growth area, unfortunately, as we persists in damaging nature, ruining the environment that we were blessed with, an opportunity to work and live in harmony with it, and the growing bad interaction of mankind and nature in the worst possible ways. Worse than that is that so many continue to insist on their right to ravage Nature, to destroy it, to wreak havoc on the natural order, all in the name of money, of billions in the bank, more houses than anyone needs and more 'stuff' than is sane.

This contagion seems to be growing at exactly a time when the other end of mankind is suffering more deprivation than ever, also a contagion of growing proportions and we all sit around and rotate for so called action  to combat this. We send food, relabel it to sooth certain people, and then the aid gets stolen and sold on the black market while those in need continue to starve, to feel the cold and the heat, to drink and wash in filthy water. The few who genuinely combat all this, well, like spitting into the wind really.

But most of all, worst of all, is the contagion of insanity that seems to be overwhelming in its growth and in its audacity. When before have we allowed madness to exist in our national level of leadership? Yes, there have been nutty and even bad people before, people who spouted evil, but they were mostly not national and mostly faded out or were truly unimportant, American ideals defeating them, even fought a Civil War to defeat the evil.

However, today we have it so much worse. We have a fake president who manifests ever increasingly the signs of madness, of myriad syndromes of mental illness that negate his ability to fulfill his job responsibilities. Even though he now is hunkered down in a royal snit, he continues to wallow in his delusions, even calling in reinforcements, fellow insane people, more and more as the contagion of madness, of insanity clings to the national psyche and grows. Another growth industry, a very dangerous one.

More dangerous, though, is the fact that we tolerate this. We tolerate the words and acts of treason with equanimity all the while we should be out there demanding justice, demanding removal of people seeking to overthrow our legitimate government, to spit on the very Constitution that they swore an oath to serve, to protect, to honor. And I am wrong, for far more dangerous is the contagion spreading even unto the furthest corners of this land, up and down, in all directions, as people drop down out of reality, into a dreamland of jagged mesas, huge chasms, and toxic airs and waters. Where they serve and protect those who would actually do them harm. A delusion so attractive, so tempting, so satisfying to the soul that the mind disengages? I just do not get it. National and individual suicide. Why?

Why do people still tremble before one who plays god, but is not G-d. Why do people give him the power of destruction? Why do they kowtow to him, talking of four years into the future, when by that time, probably even before, he will have truly exposed and fallen victim to his mental problems, perhaps even his physical ones as well, and then what? A replacement in one of his evil children, apparently rotten through and through with the same contagion? What?

When even Pence, yes, the Devil's Spawn, speaks out publicly, no more dead face, no more backroom agreements with the nefarious schemes of Trump, then what is left. Read and hear his words and then tell me there is no contagion! "As our election contest continues, I’ll make you a promise: We’re going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted,” Vice President Pence said Tuesday at an event in West Palm Beach, Fla. “We’re going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out. We’re going to win Georgia, we’re going to save America, and we’ll never stop fighting to make America great again. You watch.”

And it does trickle down. We, ourselves, have a supposed leader in CV who is so exactly not that. Whatever qualities he had before, if ever, are seemingly lost somewhere in the shuffle, in the dust and pebbles of the disintegrating roads, in the broken fences and disarray in security, even as we seem to be funding ever bigger and more cars. It is found in the secrecy. Blaring that we were to receive the vaccine in an orderly cooperative effort with the government, we now find him forced to admit that it is a no-go. I knew that it would never be a reality, but the contagion of believing in a person long past his sell by date seems to be found even in the lowest rungs of government.

This man follows the national example of Trump. He, too, is hunkered down, not attending to meetings, not attending to business of the Village, cancelling government for a year already, other than the workings of his little evil cabal, and shouting incessantly and madly at his 'enemies' to get out of UCO, to go away, to never come back, to be denied entry into OUR building!! And then he and others go back to munching on their candies, content to have won the moment again, content like cows in the field, chewing their cuds, even as a storm approaches, and the fields around them wither in the abnormal heat.

We all need help here. We need medical help, scientific help, political help, and help from within our own selves. If we sit around, stand around, ignoring, enjoying or exhausted, giving up, well, then the contagion wins and we lose, manifestly and hugely, lose it all. Wonder if there is a vaccine for sanity, and if not, perhaps a huge effort such as we have done with the vaccine for COVID-19 can be repeated, this time with a different goal in mind, just as needed, just as important, perhaps more so!

Wonder if this will be a 'historical' epic movie twenty years from now - if we survive, if we do not become the reality of a Midnight Sky. I would hate for that to become true. G-d Almighty, but we are in a bad way and where is the cure, the panacea for it all?

WHEN, WHEN, WHEN!!!!!!!

     There are several reasons why one can sit out there and ignore or deny reality. One can, most unfortunately, be a Trumpite, who neither cares nor understands the danger he represents. One can be a fervent supporter of his plan to overthrow the government of the Untied States, to spit on the Constitution. One can be a member of society who feels no connection to it until it hits them personally, and by then it is too late. Or, one can be among those who have given up, tired, so tired of all this.

I, too, as so tired of all this. Weeks after he lost the election, in a resounding and definite election, wherein the voice of the people was loud and clear, weeks later we find that he has morphed into the modern day version of the Confederate States of America. No, he has not, as of yet, spit out a secession declaration, for his plans and the plans of all those traitors who met with him in the WH, munching on little snacks - paid for by us! - as they planned the overthrow of the government, are far greater in scope. No split, but rather a taking of the whole, the country in its entirety. So you out there who think this has nothing to do with you but is instead mere wrangling among politicians, well, think again. Think of the morning after, Jan. 7, 2021, when the United States of America will cease to exist in its present form.

"Almost certain to fail." And there is the key word, creeping into our phrase lexicon, once an unthinkable possibility. Almost certain? It should not even be a far distant thought and yet, here it is, with Representatives and Senators conferring with the President of the United States to negate and null its Constitution, to overthrow free and fair elections, so declared over and over again. Yet the madman of the orange hair continues to scream, continues to plot and plan, continues to rush headlong, taking along a shockingly large group of those willing and indeed, eager, to go along with this declaration of war on America. They have even been openly joined up with Pence, who will seemingly refuse to do his job and will rule favorably on all the attempted blocks and hindrances to the certification of the Electoral votes. Never did trust that man, the man of the pasted hair, the dead face, and a psychological weird fear of "Mother" - his wife!

Perhaps more frightening than anything else is the amount of those willing, even eager, propulsive in intentions, to go along with this rebellion, this treason. Personally, all these people, every man and woman among them, every single one, from top to bottom - from Trump to those waiting to be sworn in - they are all traitors! Sworn in to what, I wonder? To what political entity are they swearing allegiance and loyalty - to the US of A or to the State of Trump.

 Unless one is deaf, willingly so, one cannot but hear the echoes of pain filled cries coming from the past, and even the future, as it is being changed. Adams, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt - both of them -Kennedy, McCain, the dead and wounded, the missing, of our wars, their bereaved families, and all those now little boys and girls who only wish to grow up and become of service to their country. Gone, all gone, in the eyes and minds of these dastardly bastards, and now, even Pat Robertson realizes his error in backing Trump. Too little, too late, I believe! Just too damned late!

Yes, I am that frightened. Think of all the once unthinkable that has taken place these past four years. A man impersonating a president sitting and tweeting as a madman, running a government rife with incompetence and corruption, governing along lines of madness, a criminal in his own right! Worst of all, those whom he has  suborned, inveigled into his treasonous camp, for whatever reason. Is McConnell a traitor? Perhaps, but personally, I think he went along for the thrill of the power he held in his weak chinned face. Does that make him innocent of charges of treason? NO, for he has enabled all of it, from start to finish, he and so many, shockingly many, more.

73 cadets from West Point caught up in a cheating scandal, a huge one, all but one from the freshman year. What does that say about the decaying moral fiber of this nation. These cadets passed through high school during Trump's term in office, so ask yourself, just what lessons re morality, justice, laws, and faithfulness to one's oath did they learn? From that rusted out idol or figurehead? I am so sick of all this, watching as this whole country careers and caroms off walls of their own making, much to our detriment.

What will be? I think even G-d is flummoxed, taken back, appalled, at the behavior of mankind. Lord, Lord, but what these people have wrought. Over the past few years we have enabled so much. More wars, more slaughters of ethnic origin. More growing hatred and actions based on that hatred. Growing deterioration of the climate and environment. Food and water shortages. Hunger and homelessness. Repetitive behaviors of the past, like separating, forcefully and cruelly, families seeking asylum and safety, hope and a future.

We have long been warned that what a man sows, he will reap. We are promised, though, in hope, that he who plants in tears and sorrow, will reap with joy and laughter. There is hope There is a chance. But those odds are rapidly shrinking, the door closing and no corresponding window opening. No, the only hope left is us. Will we recognize the treasonous acts of the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the Senators involved , the Representatives pushing this whole initiative? Will we? 

If we do not step on this, then "almost certain" will be empty words and what will we look forward to on Jan. 7 other than troops in the streets, and the dimming of the light of hope for mankind, permanently shut, blown out with a permanent breath of our treason. Benedict Arnold sends congratulations. Nathan Hale cries. So do I. And you?

  

SLEEPLESS NIGHTS - AGAIN

      I remember my grandparents telling me that I should enjoy my sleep when I could. When I asked why, as sleep seemed to be a waste of hours that could otherwise be spent in reading, thinking, improving my skill at jacks and turnover games, the answer was that sleep was a disappearing magic trick. Why magic? Because it could lead to thoughts and answers to problems, about issues, that were not there the day before. I would shrug my shoulders, wondering again at the strange behavior and thought processes of adults. And proceeded to read again that night with my flashlight, under the covers, treasuring those quiet hours of enjoyment. Now? Now I wish I could sleep, would rather not be reading or typing during the wee hours of the morning. But I guess we never appreciate things in their times, do we?

Aside from the apparently shrinking ability to stay asleep, or turn off the thoughts, enough at least to fall back and stay asleep for a few blessed hours, it was the uncertainty of the immediate future that worried me the most. For four years I figured that the ouster of Trump and his crew would lead to better sleep. I could stop those thoughts of horror at what we had become as a nation, as a people. We could now return to our basic foundations, work at becoming a united nation once again. Return to a saner program of environmental and climate approaches, stress the need for compassion and humanity, for economic sanity, and turn off that chute of hatred that kept spewing its sewage into our national ocean. We could even be so much better at handling new problems like the pandemic, working again with science and scientists of the highest caliber, speaking truths, not spitting lies ever and always. Simply put, it was to have hope once again.

Those sleepless, worried nights, increasing in the level of anxiety with every lie, with every outrageous act of indecency, with every increase of accepted hatred and bigotry, with the continued deterioration of the economic situation of the nation, appeared to at least be coming to an end even as they ramped up during the campaign. Could it be that Americans would do the wrong thing again and keep that travesty of a man in office?! No!!! Cannot be. Must not be. But there it was, in the middle of the night. Keeping my eyes open, staring at the ceiling, planning to get rid of that popcorn stuff, - and I did - with thoughts of worry and concern, with fright, chasing each other round and round. In the middle of the night.

Ahh, I thought to myself, after the election. He could scream and shout, kick his heels and wave his arms, but he lost. Sanity prevailed as the people spoke. Sleep. Again. I hoped. But it was not to be. That man, that imitation of a human, proceeded to threaten to bring down the pillars of our country, like a destructive Samson of America, rather than dredging up some shred of pride and dignity, and making his exit like a man, a grown up man in  a grown up body with a grown up mind. Never to be, was it?

So the sleepless nights became worse, more intense, and I literally begged my mind to let me sleep. I prayed for something to happen, anything, that would turn off that man and his dangerous rantings, his whipping up of the mob,  as his 'base' became more toxic, more determined to forgo any and all rules in the madness of denying the truth - he lost, Biden was #46 and that was that. But no it was not.

More and more outrageous actions and lawsuits - even yesterday. More threats, even unto the suggested use of military law and rule. More insane tweets and even madder conversations with his enablers on Fox. Even some of them began to turn away from him - too little, too late. Yet those of the GOP in government all lost their minds, their spines, their sense, as they were sniveling cowards, afraid of this madman, refusing to acknowledge, openly, honestly, that the truth was the truth, that democracy would defeat the attempts to overthrow it, that they would regrow spines and recognize treason where it was, and stop enabling its destruction. But that was not to be either.

Finally, after all the reassurance of all the talking heads that such was not to be and that was not going to happen, or the other plan would not work, even as all these reassurances fell behind in the dust, as his insanity, his dangerous insanity and mad pursuit of a win in an election he lost went beyond anything anyone anticipated, even then, we were told not to worry. Sure, it was grating on the nerves, but no, would never happen - even as it did. Time and again the never to be became  reality and even as he lost, as his mad associates lost with him, they refused to accept the truth, to accept reality.

Oh, yes, they could make a mess on Jan. 6, but it would be over too, and rule would prevail. But would it? An insane conversation complete with an imitation Hitler, ranting, raving, chanting, threatening, proposing maneuvers that would kill this country, took place, with the advisers even more insane than their master. And sleep became a dream I chased with no chance of catching it, as long as this madman and his enablers, his resident cowards, his treasonous backers like Graham, McConnell, Jonson, Paul and the House creeps that went along with this. Everything I had worried over, all that I had written of, warned of, all had happened, even as sleep became ever more a wisp of a dim memory. What would be? What would the world of America be for my family, for my kids? What would be did not appear to be pretty. It certainly was not reassuring.

Now, when the man was at the end of the road, seemingly devoid of any more room in which to practice his dangerous insanity, he did it again and sleep became an impossibility. Military takeover? Military overseeing supposed elections after seizing the machines? Scorched earth policy discussed when speaking of fellow Americans?! Allowing a dangerous person, Sidney Powell, to advise in a serious manner? Using troops to invoke that martial law, making a mockery of an old piece of legislation, twisting and turning it to enable his own twisted mind and ambitions? Even some of his chief enablers had it - enough. But that does not stop the mess and now I am desperate for sleep.

 How to stop worrying. How to deal with dangerous idiots who tell us that we have to "run the gauntlet'? What the hell is happening here, to us, to America? Do we not hear the voices and echoes of all those who died to make America possible? Do we not see the gaps in the population of people who died - were murdered - by the incompetence and lies of the Trump administration? Where in the name of all that's holy - and not - are we?

Below I have copied a piece of an article and see if you can sleep after reading this. I need say no more as tonight, you, too will be staring up at the ceiling, along with me. 

"...even the mention of martial law may fan the flames of many supporters clinging to the belief the election result was fraudulent. That could incite violence to bring the idea into fruition.... "In the conspiratorial conservative base of supporting Trump, there are calls for using the Insurrection Act to declare martial law,"... "When they hear that the president is actually considering this, there are violent extremist groups that look at this as a dog whistle, an excuse to go out and create ... violence,.....  

It's a concept she calls "acceleration," in which violent extremist groups, especially White supremacists, try to overthrow the United States government. These groups believe that will take place through a civil war and look to "accelerate the chaos, accelerate the coming of the civil war..."So when they hear that the president is open to this idea of martial law, we may see certain groups mobilizing to commit acts that, in their minds, a justification for the use of the Insurrection Act,"

Join me in those sleepless hours. Be ever alert. Be ever watchful. America needs us; we need us. Please.