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.

It Won’t End

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Here’s a piece of the ugliness and frustration and confusion that has marked this election cycle and the decade since Donald Trump emerged from his fortress of gilded toilets: the Senate race in Alaska is now a front-page story because of the alleged shenanigans of aids to Democratic candidate Mary Peltola.

The NY Times broke the story and now the Washington Post is following up with what sounds to be a more robust assessment of wrongdoing on the part of the Peltola camp.

Trouble is, the Republican Governor is commenting as if the Democrats are obviously guilty, saying that they will do anything to win (wow, talk about calling the kettle black), basically insinuating that it’s an open-and-shut case of Democrats trying to sow confusion.

The Peltola camp response is denial and a predictable defensiveness, though if it is true, shame on them. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot and hand the bad guys more ammunition.

In any event, now we can add this to the list of things that may or may not be true and emerge as news stories simply to muddy the waters and serve as another distraction…

… along with an apparent concern that many Alaskan voters don’t know the meaning of the word “incumbent.”

The Waters Are Too Easily Muddied

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Enough already. The saturation point has long been reached and surpassed. Political advertising is a curse, a bunion, a migraine headache, a toothache, a hernia, and a hangnail all rolled into one big shitburger.

The darkness, the graininess, the exaggeration, the low road taken all the time. And the filthy excess of Elon Musk and the roughly half-billion dollars he’s contributed to Republican causes. Doesn’t this raise red flags for anyone—that one person can have so much potential influence over an election season? And what are his motivations?

My sincere hope is that all his money won’t amount to a hill of beans of support for the candidates he’s pushing. I want to believe that all the money in the world can’t compromise principles, that voters are awakening to the gross underestimation of our own intelligence, and that we can no longer be bought with cheap, over-the-top, insulting and manipulative drivel.

Ugh, I guess we’ll soon find out if that’s the case.

Life

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Daily writing prompt
What’s one thing you own that holds deep sentimental value?
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I’ve been ruminating over this and can’t come up with anything except photos and video clips.

I can’t think of one material possession that means anything to me, other than its usefulness as a pair of shoes or a jacket or a tool. I don’t get misty-eyed when I talk about the 12-year-old Camry I drive.

What I do value is the Shutterfly compilation I made of pictures from my trip to Israel, and the Aura frame we have with what has become a running history of the lives of our children and grandchildren, and some of the events we’ve attended and places we’ve been.

That’s about it, I think.

Ill-advised

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It’s 7:03 AM and the sun has not yet risen. It’s still pretty dark, and it has me questioning the push to make Daylight Saving Time a year-round thing.

Of course, Donald Trump is an advocate, not sure why. He likely hasn’t done his homework on this, but if some major donor thinks it’s a good idea, then he’ll be all for it. And he does like making decrees.

Just mentioning this because if we didn’t have the change back to Standard Time coming up this Sunday morning, kids in this neck of the woods would eventually be struggling to get out of bed and navigating the trip to school and sitting in class, and it would be dark outside until 8:30 in the morning.

And looking ahead, who needs an extra hour of daylight when the temperature is 110?

Anxiety

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Daily writing prompt
What’s the worst travel experience you’ve ever had?
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I can’t recall ever having a nightmarish experience while flying, though there has been the occasional delay or gate change and walk-run to catch a connecting flight. So I’ll have to go with the numerous times we’ve run into back-ups as we drive between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Often times we decide to go through Connecticut and that is often where we run into trouble.

The traffic is heavy at various spots along I-84, so slow-downs come with the territory. We know they’re coming but we often just deal with them and rationalize that we’re getting great gas mileage. Still, it’s quite frustrating, so from time to time we’ll take the Taconic Parkway in New York and go out of our way, up to I-90, which adds a good half, three quarters of an hour to the trip but mostly avoids the stress of congestion and crazy drivers who always seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere.

There was one other excursion that ended up being a bit more of an adventure than we might have liked. We had recently been married and were driving from the coast of Maine over to the Franconia Notch region of New Hampshire, on Columbus Day weekend. I underestimated the time it would take to do so, we couldn’t find an empty hotel or motel room, so we ended up sleeping in the back of our pick-up in a rest area outside Concord, NH.

I forgot about that one until just now. We’re still married.

Not this time

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One thing that is totally unacceptable is if potential voters decide their ballots don’t matter and enough of them stay away from the polls to allow this Republican nightmare to continue.

I sometimes wonder if part of the Trumpian/Russian/Chinese/Heritage Foundation strategy isn’t to flood the various media with inflated and exaggerated reports of the potential for a blue wave, so that voters will mistakenly think things are in the bag and get complacent. I guess many TV networks are guilty of this as well.

We just can’t let that happen.

Frequent (enough) flyer

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Daily writing prompt
What’s one piece of travel advice you always follow?
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I saw a piece of advice a long time ago that went something like, “Pack everything you think you need and then take out half of it.” I don’t know if I’ve ever followed that, but one thing I’ve found that makes things easier is minimizing the pieces of luggage and, if you don’t have TSA Pre-check, make the walk through security as painless as possible by following their guidelines.

Besides just preparing logistically and familiarizing yourself with the destination, don’t carry a pocketful of change. And enjoy your layover with a drink from your favorite coffee spot, then sit back and people watch and marvel at the the dynamics of take-off and landing.

Sparse

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Daily writing prompt
What was your first ever videogame?
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There haven’t been many. We did break down and get a Nintendo Wii a number of years ago, and I think we might have gotten a Tiger Woods golf game. And maybe Super Mario Brothers, though we may have found a version of that to play on our Gateway 2000. Our kids played that one so often that our daughter memorized the theme song and played it on the piano.

I don’t believe I’m of the video games generations.

2800

Smell Those Roses

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Daily writing prompt
Do you set personal goals for yourself?
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Hardly ever. Maybe in broad terms, but nothing along the lines of “Here’s where I want to be in five years… ten years.” That strictness and discipline has escaped me, and I’ve always been averse to moving through life with blinders on, anyway. That has always seemed like a set-up for stress and disappointment and an overly regimented, even self-centered way of going through life.

At this stage of things, any goal I set has more to do with getting the lawn mowed or completing some small project, or getting some steps in so my watch doesn’t offer up its motivational drivel disguised as patronizing compliments.

Don’t Swallow the Hook

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Daily writing prompt
What do you think is the future of AI?
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I’d like to think that the future isn’t as foreboding and dystopian as current sound bytes might have us believe. It would be unrealistic to think that everything will come up roses, but I think I’ll hold out for more good coming from this technology than bad.

Regulation won’t be a dirty word, or shouldn’t be, and we’re already seeing applications that benefit us in multiple ways. One troubling development is how pervasive AI has become on sites like YouTube and in political advertising, where it is becoming increasingly difficult or at least more frequently necessary to assess a video’s authenticity before subscribing to its message.

And the brains behind some of the big AI companies are to be listened to critically, with a mix of awe and skepticism, because some of these folks appear not to hold humanity in the highest of regards.