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.

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.

Way past time

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He still holds rallies. Mid-term. But how can they laugh? How can they listen to the drivel and filth and then applaud?

I guess they’re the 30 percent, or whatever the number is. They’re the sifted diehards, the religious lunatics still standing and clinging, still feeding the beast; the ones who love sticking it to the libs and somehow manage to believe that Donald Trump is a man of God.

They will vote as if he is on the ballot, because he told them to, and because deep-down his views on immigrants and guns and money resonate with their own. But they are only 30 percent.

This time around, maybe the other 70 will finally say No. Even in the gerrymandered red districts.

Good riddance

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Epstein

Will there ever be a precipitating factor, a bridge too far? Seems we should have encountered that by now, don’t you think?

The overarching issue is what the Heritage Foundation and Stephen Miller and Russell Vought and JD Vance and the rest envision for this country, but first things first.

Everything since Donald Trump and his trophy wife descended the escalator in 2015 has been gasoline poured on a fire. And now we wait and see if it isn’t too late to do anything about it.

This isn’t really about any one of the myriad stupid, shocking things we see and hear every day from Trump or someone in the administration. Ultimately, it’s about the rotten-to-the-core idiot roughly half the country voted into office. Twice.

Strip away all the mind-numbing streams of consciousness, all the draconian Executive Orders and defunding and verbal attacks and bridge burning and distractions, the ballroom construction—complete with bunker—and FIFA Peace Prize and an appropriated Nobel Peace Prize and a reflecting pool disaster and a “gorgeous” helipad and all the rest. What we’re left with is the walking, talking narcissistic ego monster and disaster of a human being who sits at the seat of power.

By all means, vote as if Donald Trump is on the ballot, and then tell him and the rest who apparently still think he’s a good idea to walk east ’til their hats float.

Or tell ’em all to fuck off. That might be more cathartic.

Epstein