What’s It Gonna Be?

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The Supreme Court ain’t so supreme, of late.

Maybe it has always benefited from a certain undeserved mystique- its members aren’t gods, after all, just human beings tasked with important work. Justices over the years have produced many landmark decisions seemingly based on a sincere and fair treatment of testimony and applicable law, even charting new ground from time to time, especially when it comes to human rights and bodily autonomy.

Lately, though, there seems to be some backsliding. More suspicion, more doubt, more finger pointing in the direction of a hand-picked conservative majority on a mission to, oh, I don’t know, tighten things up, bring us back to a “better” place that pleases straight, white Christians everywhere.

In the midst of the Trump mess, the court seems to not want to stick its neck out and abide by the 14th Amendment provision of forbidding insurrectionists from running for office. Though he hasn’t been accused yet, many know what Trump did and who and what he really is, and how dangerous he has become.

So maybe it comes down to how closely the court adheres to the letter of the law, along with its efforts to reel in the temptation to react to certain public sentiment, and to what many are seeing with their own eyes: Trump running roughshod over, and even making a mockery of certain norms that have long served as guardrails.

Sometimes it looks like nothing can be done to make him go away.

A Moment In Time

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a moment when you realized you were officially an adult?
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I was adulting before I moved out of the house I grew up in, but I don’t think it really hit me until I left for the last time as a single person. I still remember walking out the door on my way to our wedding and thinking something like, “This is it. Life is changing in a little while, and from then on, I’ll just be coming back here to visit.”

That was a kairos moment.

Options

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Daily writing prompt
Which is the best restaurant in your city?
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A place called The Forge gets my vote. I guess one would classify it as pub food. Great atmosphere, friendly staff, a decently varied menu, good beers on tap. Their specialty is a French cut pork chop that’s out of this world– big, tender, and flavorful.

There is also a food truck that spends a lot of time in this neck of the woods– El Puerto de las Empanadas. Exceptional! We occasionally frequent that when they’re around, often order a rice bowl topped with garlic aioli that really hits the spot.

The W.O.A.T.*

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Enough is enough.

How many times has someone said this, in reference to the Trump administration, in particular Trump himself? The latest WTF moment can only be another distraction served up to take our eyes off the Epstein files and whatever they’re doing to mess with election results in November.

I had a visceral reaction to this relentless effort to mess with the Kennedy Center and the laser focus on somehow shoe-horning a reference to Trump. The subservient, brown-nosing Kennedy Center Board is recommending an addendum to the name on the outside of the building that simply boggles the mind and confirms that Trump is a true lost boy, a needy man-child wasting our time, much more concerned with image and legacy and misdirection than actual governance.

The collective blood should be boiling by now. There is no room for such negligence, no place for such blatant disregard and flippant treatment of matters more serious than making sure one’s name finds its way to the side of another building.

Trump is a useless simpleton, drunk on power, well-versed in the ways of subterfuge and excuse-making. He possesses no gifts useful to society, yet he still commands respect from many who apparently either can’t or refuse to make a distinction between the office and the office holder.

And to think this guy doesn’t want to leave. It’s the grossest of disservices to all of us. We shouldn’t stand for it any longer.

*Yup. The Worst Of All Time.

Get Ready

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Daily writing prompt
If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?
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To my past self of high school age: as much as it is in your control, find a job that you like and that pays well. Retirement will come and you’ll be glad to have an adequate nest egg.

Don’t concern yourself with perfection. In some ways, it is a pursuit of vanity, it might consume you, and it will take up too much of your time. Mistakes will be made, and competence is a fine attribute.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not “all about you.” Before you’ve done anything, you’re already the only person in the world like you. Work on being less self-interested. There will be lots of need to tend to.

Straight Down the Middle…

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All things are possible.

I say this in reference to how I feel at the beginning of a round of golf. Hope springs eternal, optimism is the word of the moment. But often enough, with each passing hole, I am reminded of how baseless my optimism truly is.

The reminder quickly comes that playing golf decently and well is highly unlikely to happen when one plays sporadically, once every month or two. The lack of reps eventually—or often quickly—catches up with you.

This happened yesterday, as I played in a tournament we’ve been part of for four or five years now. The excitement and optimism are palpable as we all await the starting gun—or, less dramatically, the announcement that it’s time to head to our first hole. From then on, there will be more than enough reminders that I haven’t come remotely close to the 10,000 hours of practice often cited as critical if one hopes to master anything.

But no matter. It’s a great day for being outside with friends, occasionally making a good putt or driving the ball straight down the fairway, and making a contribution to lowering the team score. In reality, I can’t expect anything more than that.

Altruism Still Exists

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a moment when a stranger completely restored your faith in people?
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As helpful as these writing prompts can be, one issue I have is that they occasionally present situations that require retrieval from the memory banks, which in this particular instance has thus far resulted in no examples of faith being restored by a stranger. I’ve seen plenty of them on YouTube, though I’m not sure how many are staged or just AI. Nothing from real life is coming to mind at the moment, beyond someone holding a door and offering a kind word.

Despite getting our daily overdose of reminders of people’s capacity for behaving poorly– often our leaders– I realize that kindness and bravery and other virtuous behavior are by no means in short supply. In general, I still have faith in humanity, just not in some among the current batch of elected humanity– if “humanity” is the right word– holding office in this country and other places around the world.

Wait! I just thought of someone we met a week or so ago. My wife and I were visiting a working farm that’s also a tourist attraction in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area and we happened to run into the fourth generation farmer who helps run the place.

He gave us a ride around the property, showed us what they were doing, told us what they had plans to do, and was proud of what they had accomplished thus far. He might be one of the world’s greatest salesmen, but it felt like a serendipitous moment, from our perspective, since we were wandering around, I wasn’t sure where we should be walking, and this man out of the blue offers us a tour, takes maybe a half-hour out of his still-busy day to give us the lay of the land.

I remember thinking that I’ve seen this kind of down-to-earth, unabashed, unprovoked kindness somewhere else, and it was from another farmer closer to home.

Anyway, there are people around who are so comfortable in their own skin that their “genuineness” just pours out of them. They don’t know any other way to be, and it feels good to be in their presence, gives one hope, sets an example.

Soap-Operatic

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It’s supposed to be a basketball game that the fans come to see, but often enough—at least whenever the Indiana Fever and Sophie Cunningham are in the building—it’s more like people coming to the fights and having a basketball game break out.

So much drama is unbecoming of a professional caliber sport.

Caitlin Clark attracts a similar amount of attention, and between the two of them, the distraction level often enough skyrockets. It is difficult not to chalk this up to simmering racial animosity, jealousy, and just plain poor sportsmanship. In addition, it’s becoming reminiscent of an average soccer match, where choreographed tumbles and crying to the ref are annoying staples that waste time and cheapen the product.

Anyway, all these extracurricular activities are dragging down the women’s game. They take away from the game itself. People may well come to expect a certain amount of aggressive play, but judging from what ends up on YouTube and ESPN, there’s a regular diet of headlocks and fisticuffs and flagrant fouls. It’s gone way beyond just pushing and shoving, which may put butts in the seats and bolsters viewership, but somehow diminishes the value of the WNBA.

Another Scream Into the Void

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Visceral reactions to hair-pulling ignorance passing for expertise. Standing by as the people in charge degrade our understanding of disease prevention and make decisions based on unproven theories and maybe coincidence.

So many questions, often including, “What’s wrong with these people?!”

How is it possible that Donald Trump can sign yet another hair-brained Executive Order, this one scaling back the vaccine schedule? Based on what? An unproven, tenuous connection between vaccines and autism? And what experience does RFK have that warrants his involvement in any medical decisions whatsoever?

This administration is a nightmare. A hugely dangerous, very bad joke, playing fast and loose with peoples’ lives.