It’s a scourge we’ve brought on ourselves.

We don’t necessarily think of it as a scourge, because we’ve “domesticated” it to a point, used it to generate electricity for our toasters and phone chargers. And we’ve been fortunate enough to keep the crazy animals at bay, or they’ve had the good sense themselves, at least to this point, to refrain from releasing missiles with warheads sent to wreak havoc and destruction and a heinous, terrible, endlessly hellish aftermath.

I said none of that the way I wanted to, but ever since starting Midnight In Chernobyl, I have a growing disdain for anyone who wields the use of nuclear weapons as leverage or threat. They can’t, must not, be serious. To even entertain that notion is a bridge too far.

It seems unlikely that such a force could be employed in a “strategic” or limited way. Once unleashed, large swaths of the world would be rendered uninhabitable, with billions destined for annihilation, or at least a slow descent into physical decay, succumbing to ARS, acute radiation syndrome. No need to go into detail regarding what happens to a person suffering from ARS– dare to look at pictures and data, post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or the disaster at Unit 4 at the Chernobyl power station.

My beef is with the person or persons who are empty or angry or vile enough to think nuclear war is an option that could ever be put on the table. All countries who currently have nuclear capabilities should disarm and render harmless every weapon they have, regardless of how upset they’d be over such a steep financial investment being rendered all for naught.

I guess it’s too easy to say that we never should have gone there, but we know now that we must never consider going there again, if we know what’s good for us.

If we can never rise above the penchant for expanding borders and forcing our will on unwilling populations, then we owe it to each other to at least find more conventional ways to wipe “civilization” off the map.

Not sure what to make of the Crumbley sentencings. On the one hand, there apparently were opportunities for these parents to intervene and they did not. On the other hand, they’ve become scapegoats of a sort and now pay the price for the unwillingness of Congress to do anything about the proliferation and easy availability of weapons in this country—enough for more than one per each man, woman, and child living here in America.

Saying that last sentence out loud really drives home the insanity. We’re an armed camp, with enough of us, on any given day, sporting an itchy trigger finger or at least tenaciously embracing a late-to-the-party, ill-conceived interpretation of the Second Amendment that has gotten surprisingly good mileage for its adherents.

Maybe the Crumbleys were afraid of their son, afraid to intervene. Maybe they didn’t pick up on the signs, or just didn’t care. I haven’t followed the trial or sat on the jury. In any event, a precedent has been set, a message sent, for good or ill, right or wrong. The particulars of this case may have warranted the verdict, but we shouldn’t let it cloud another piece of our reality: there are too many guns available in a milieu tainted by paranoia, criminal intent, and a willing, unquestioning, maybe convenient misread.

I’ve been reading Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higginbotham. The subtitle is The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster.

I’m not sure what Russians think of it, but it certainly is a detailed foray based on available documentation and eyewitness accounts. Words like secrecy, propaganda, and myth are used to describe the aftermath. It’s an enlightening yet depressing read so far and I’m sure it’s only going to be more of those things as I go deeper.

Soviet subterfuge aside (the disaster unfolded in 1986), we live less than five miles, as the crow flies, from a nuclear power plant, and I look at the towers in a different way since starting to read this book. I hope and pray that the people who work there are at the top of their game, day in and day out, because they’re working with forces that can turn on us and make life absolutely horrifying and miserable.

In the absence of expertise and constant vigilance—and because of shoddy workmanship and unrealistic construction schedules and pressure from upper management along the way—a nuclear power plant can be a monumentally tragic accident waiting to happen. You can’t half-ass anything. You’re harnessing the power of nuclear fission. There’s no room for mismanagement or incompetence, no room for letting up or coasting or getting comfortable with your job. You keep your eyes on the ball all the time.

Those who advocate for nuclear power as a piece of the ongoing answer to our energy needs must surely recognize the ongoing risk. There is no room for complacency or a cavalier attitude. Nuclear power may contribute smaller amounts of greenhouse gases, but it’s always a calculated risk, playing with fire, in some ways a gigantic concession we make just so we can power our commerce and charge our playthings.

To speak of it as clean energy is at the very least misleading. OK, an outright lie. Any proponent has to acknowledge the attached Brobdingnagian strings, and ask if there aren’t safer ways to keep the lights on.

It appears that, to some degree, Republicans are awakening to the folly of embracing a no-compromise position on the evils of abortion, after the Arizona Supreme Court became the most recent judicial body to raise hackles, proclaiming a decision to resurrect, in this particular case, a Civil War-era statute barring the procedure except in life-threatening situations for the mother.

Even Kari Lake has seen some sort of light, though she now claims to agree with Donald Trump and his convenient stance of leaving it to the state(s) and, as Lake puts it, “her people.”

As hinted at in a previous post, Republicans appear to be trying to put some distance between themselves and the SCOTUS decision that overturned Roe v Wade– itself a ruling which had always been a tough pill to swallow for a lot of Evangelical Christians.

In fairness, principles are seemingly at stake, namely a faithful and obedient embrace of the 5th Commandment, but this has always clouded and unduly influenced what I believe to be the more consequential provisions of Roe v Wade via the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The trouble, as I see it, boils down to a difficulty in coming to terms with the separation of church and state, with a letting go of the faith-based need to intervene in and control the decision-making process of women who want to retain the right to make informed decisions about their own bodies, their own situations. It’s obviously been very difficult for anti-abortion advocates to let go of this self-righteous attitude and need for control, as if they are somehow the ones gifted with the wisdom of Solomon, the only ones who somehow know what is best.

There is no room for self-determination in such a stance, or an allowance for a just and gracious God. There is, instead, a temptation to play God, or at least to force one’s religious beliefs on people who aren’t heathens and who may not embrace those religious beliefs with the same zeal, or embrace them at all.

Everyone seems to be in a hurry. No revelation there. But every now and then it gets on my nerves.

Granted, it was the beginning of morning rush hour as I made my way to the lab for some blood work. But it’s an inevitability anymore—on my way there, and back: someone is on my tail, maybe late for work, or maybe just so geared up and harried that they only know one speed anymore. And it’s not like the route is interstate highway. For the most part, it’s hilly and bendy, one lane both directions.

Back off, I say to myself. I slow down often times, because I have a certain amount of passive-aggressive in me, and I refuse to let someone wrest control as I navigate and try to drive at a reasonable rate of speed.

Slow down, everyone. Take a chill pill.

I can tell I’m getting older. It’s like the world is moving a mile a second and I’m putt-putting along in a Model T.

The totals are gross, as in eww…. Might as well be 50 billion, or 26 billion. The amount of money spent in a presidential campaign long ago moved beyond reasonable and has languished in shameful territory for a while now.

Basically, it represents the deep pockets of special interests and influence peddlers and their voracious appetites for trying to ensure that their views prevail and their businesses benefit.

They behave as if there is some magic connection between amount donated and level of success and reciprocity. It didn’t work in 2020, for people like the Koch brothers, and hopefully again this year. Still, imagine having that kind of money to spend.

No one gives big money without expecting something in return, at least when it comes to winning elections. And even the nickel and dime donations come with expectations.

Voters with functioning bullshit meters can still have the final say, though, no matter how deep the opposition’s pockets are.

By and large, the comic strips contain little comedic value, except maybe Zits, on occasion. Old, tired humor, for the most part. I read several each day out of habit, but they rarely deliver.

The Lockhorns should file for divorce and call it a day.

Trump at his Trumpiest. Bragging about a fundraiser that doubles what Biden brought in last week.

“An historic haul.” You go for it, Donald, keep your eye on the only prize that matters to you. We’re all impressed. It’s always been about the money and bragging rights. And it gives you a bigger pot with which to pay all your lawyers, right?

He’s such a slimy simpleton.

Keep in mind, everyone, that a border deal was this close to being done, and Trump said no so he could use it as fodder in his march to mayhem. And his minions obeyed.

Remember that, everyone.

Remember that he enjoys making mountains out of mole hills. Remember he just needs things to gripe about.

Remember that, all the way through November 4.

Never forget that Trump brings absolutely nothing to the table.

Jon Stewart is an intelligent man. An eloquent, passionate, searingly funny and insightful speaker who some would like to see run for POTUS. It seems unlikely he’d want to do that, mostly because he knows he couldn’t stand the snail’s pace of the legislative back-and-forth, and he’d experience a very different dynamic when it came to making his voice heard– in part because he’d be on the inside and dealing with the irrational clown car full of Republicans trying to impeach him for saying such hurtful, i.e. truthful things about them.

A whole other set of pressures would come to bear on his life, assaults from all directions, attacks on him and his family. The magnifying glass would come out, dirty politics would be lying in wait, ready to pounce if he ever decided to run. I can’t picture him wanting the headaches. He’s better off standing at the periphery and on occasion sitting in a hearing as an advocate for whatever cause he chooses to champion.

Not POTUS. I can’t picture him ever wanting to do that, even as he’d certainly spice things up, make things interesting. He’d be confined in ways he probably couldn’t stomach, though. He’d be biting his tongue alot. He couldn’t deal with the backstabbing and the smoke-filled rooms and the constipation. He’d be spending too much time suffering idiots and playing games he probably doesn’t enjoy playing.

In some ways, he has more latitude and a more powerful voice on the outside. Still, it would be something if he entertained the possibility.