Southern Florida experiences relentless rain and flooding. Poetic, given that Ron DeSantis and allies are OK with deleting climate change from the conversation when making environmental policy. That’s one way to do it—just ignore it, bury one’s head, and say it doesn’t exist. Sounds very DeSantis-like. Or Trumpian.

I wonder if he ran this by his Surgeon General first.

Liz Cheney’s recent book, Oath and Honor, is enlightening. It’s more detailed, of course, than what you might get in an 8-minute sound bite on one of the networks. It corroborates details of just how slimy and impressionable– not to mention calculating– Kevin McCarthy and Josh Hawley and Mike Johnson, among others, were and still are (whatever happened to Kevin McCarthy, by the way?).

Ms. Cheney’s account clears up any doubts about what Trump—and those in his orbit—wanted to do. It was blatant election interference, leading to insurrection. Trump was mad, sitting in his high chair with a bib on, crying because his Cheerios were soggy. He picked a story and stuck to it, is still sticking to it, because he doesn’t know how to do anything other than double down and cling to the image of “winner.”

Fewer and fewer people are thinking of him as a winner. At best, he’s a poor sport. At worst, he’s a traitor, though maybe that’s a bit harsh. Trump emanates a vibe of not being smart enough to know better. Pure image, zero substance, at the mercy of his many delusions.

Has there ever been a candidate for high office who is so sufficiently unfit? He’s not even trying anymore, and people still love him. Or at least are willing to defend him.

It’s remarkable in a stunningly tragic way. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t care about them or the country. It’s enough that he’s the front man for their fears and hatreds, saying what they want to hear.

That, and they just can’t get enough of pissing off the left.

Trump’s rally in Vegas on Saturday was, perhaps, further evidence that he’s feeling the pressure of being a convicted felon. Or maybe he’s just generally unraveling.

He was standing in triple-digit temps, making those who attended listen as he expounded on wet batteries and sharks and told those in attendance that he didn’t care if they were wilting in the heat. In fact, he told them he didn’t care about them—he just needed their vote.

Maybe that’ll be as close as he gets to shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. We’ll see if they still vote for him. One might dare entertain the possibility that some are starting to have second thoughts.

I know I should shift gears and write about something besides the sad state of our politics or the pile of dry tinder in Europe, but it’s difficult to ignore the reality that human beings are basically animals with a superior brain that sometimes gets used for beneficial things.

Maybe we are foragers at heart and we’ve never learned how to handle evolution that happened too quickly. We have the capabilities to find solutions, but our instincts win out– they are stronger than certain less prominent impulses. Instincts that lead us down the path to war and strife and pain and suffering, over and over again.

We keep hitting our heads, putting our hands on a hot stove. Over and over.

“Never again” doesn’t hold water. It’s the infuriating inevitability of the downward spiral—that, in the end, we’re powerless to fix things, condemned to making the same mistakes ad infinitum. Maybe our brain isn’t all that superior, and peacemaking will be the mainstay of some future iteration of human.

If we’re around that long.

Trump and Noem. There you go. That’s the ticket—the one that would reinforce the notion that the Right has lost its mind. That would make it official.

First of all, who in their right mind would want to be Trump’s VP, especially this time around? And second of all, why is Trump still standing? The fact that he’s the bona fide Republican candidate for POTUS in 2024 will provide fodder for anyone wanting to write a book on this period of American history. It’s an ugly, albeit interesting time to be alive.

Played golf for the first time this year. I played like someone who hadn’t touched a club since October, not to mention as one who only gets out 3 or 4 times a year to begin with. In other words, I expect way more than I have a right to.

It’s a bit like riding a bike, after a long layoff, but there are so many things that can go wrong with a golf swing that I couldn’t begin to analyze my shortcomings or do anything about them beyond altering my grip or stance. I just play, and revel in the opportunity to be out on a beautiful course, enjoying the good company and the occasional decent shot.

We didn’t hold anyone up, which can’t be said for some who decide that a lost ball is worth 10 minutes of their time, or others who linger on the greens and take practice strokes and just generally behave like they own the place. Fortunately, most follow the rules of etiquette and are mindful of the pace of play, which is important to anyone who doesn’t want to spend 5 hours on the course being aggravated. That’s not good for the mindset.  

I’ve never been one for saving for a rainy day. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the thinking behind it. It’s more that I look at money as something to enjoy in real time. I’ve never made a lot of it, and still have this wildly optimistic feeling that some windfall is gonna come our way and allow us to live a little easier…

Short of that, the current monthly income gets us through to the next 4^th Wednesday but without a lot to spare. And to be honest, I’ve lately been of the mind that the way things are going in the world, it’s time to start enjoying the fruits of our years of labor without worrying about how much is left at the end of the month, or how every single penny is spent. I really can’t be bothered by that level of discipline and tight-waddery (probably not a word).

We won’t be draining bank accounts anytime soon, at least on purpose, but I am even less bound by concerns about prudent fiscal decision making than I used to be. That ship sailed a long time ago, and I never got close to coming aboard.

If Armageddon comes, then we’ll lean on each other and feel blessed to have family around with whom to face the challenges. If the end of civilization isn’t nigh, then we’ll try to enjoy whatever good years we have left and not lose sleep over an occasional brush with frivolity.

I am no one’s subject, or at least that is not my natural proclivity. Nor is it anyone else’s.

Juval Harari spends some time in his book Sapiens… talking about the development of cultures, conquests and conquerors, making it sound like the aim of Cortes and Khan and the Roman emperors was to subjugate the masses and control them, to spread their influence as far and wide as possible and keep their “subjects” in line. Keeping them happy and content wasn’t necessarily their first order of business. Benevolence wasn’t necessarily a strong suit of history’s overlords, though some were better at it than others.

Maybe not surprisingly, nothing much has changed. The tools of control and group think have evolved, but the impulses are the same, sadly.

Case in point: while America drools over the Kardashians and cranks up the Country and Western drivel, Russia and China are plotting their strategy to ruin us, to tear us down and topple what they see as our hold on the world. Time for a new world order, in their eyes, and they can’t be bothered with the distractions and fluff and useless things that seem to distract if not enthrall many of us here in the states. Putin and Xi are thinking about control and conquest, while we go about “doing us” and arguing over whether or not two old men, one of whom is a convicted felon and an all-around asshole, should get to be POTUS.

Domination still plays, still rules, whether or not the people of Ukraine or Taiwan or anywhere else on earth agree. Of course we need leaders and a sense of security and direction, but we don’t need strongmen and fascists and self-interested idiots who seem to want to treat human beings as pliable, easily-manipulated fodder and playing pieces in their endless efforts to keep a stranglehold on power.

National interests aside, why has it always been so difficult for nations and leaders to live and let live, to give cooperation a try? Someone always seems to be in survival mode, convinced that it’s their way or the highway. Such insistence never, ultimately, ends well. Because people don’t like being subjects or pawns, or dismissed out of hand as sheepish and expendable.

June 6, 2024. Eighty years since the massive Allied invasion on the shores of Normandy, and the numbers of those who participated are, naturally, shrinking.

What will happen when there’s no one left? The cemeteries will remain, other memorials will remain, but the tangible connection with the humans who were there will go away.

I don’t think we need to worry about forgetting. I was born 10 years after D-Day and I have the date locked in the memory banks. There are many more like me, and younger, who will remind anyone who cares to listen.

Then again, would it be so terrible if the memory starts to fade? So much of our energy is invested in remembering the past, and most often our warring past. “Never forget” is both honorable and burdensome, an obligation to regularly remind ourselves of the pain humans are capable of inflicting, and the unimaginable, rage-inducing losses, the need to sacrifice everything because some assholes somewhere have designs on ruling the world.

Of all the things money has been spent on over the millennia, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to learn that the expenses and costs of war top them all.

And the human cost is staggeringly abominable.

It would be refreshing to be able to turn a corner on always remembering, and instead spend more time planning for progress in a more peaceful direction. But what are the chances of that ever happening?