Will we ever hear the end of it? Get ready for the latest assault on decency and decorum: Trump won handily in South Carolina.

It’s important to keep in mind that his victories, his momentum, are in the context of the Republican primary season, and not a general election. The hope is that, faced with the stark reality of actually having to vote for him for real might persuade many to swear off of this bombastic, idiotic empty suit.

Court storming. The college basketball tradition that has always seemed ill-advised and lately has turned dangerous, for some reason (have they started serving alcohol?). It’s a bit of mindless mob behavior leading to tense moments for all involved.

First it was Caitlin Clark, now Kyle Filipowski. The on-court crush of humanity has always appeared to have no upside, except as an excuse for home court fans to be crazy for a few minutes, maybe get on TV. It’s always seemed over-the-top and unnecessary, and it puts fans and personnel on both teams in danger of injury or even being trampled.

It’s a confined-space version of the mass hysteria that ensues on a football field after a big win. If this keeps up, there will be new rules coming. Can’t say it would be a disappointment.

And the old person signs off.

After reading Prequel, Rachel Maddow’s most recent book, it’s abundantly clear that a free society—or free relative to other countries at least—is an easy mark for a regime, say, like the one in Germany back in the 1930s and ‘40s.

The playbook Hitler used on us appears to have paved the way for the one Putin is currently using. And Putin has better tools with which to penetrate deep into society and mess with our psyche. It was then and is now all about generating rot from within. Sowing discontent among us, spreading disinformation, picking at and widening the divide between haves and have nots, appealing to an embrace of isolationism, grooming a sense of fear and mistrust when it comes to immigrants, along with an ever-present antisemitism.

Even going so far as to sweet-talking and bribing politicians, our representatives in Congress. There’s been little in terms of bombshell accusations in this regard, but all one has to do is listen to Bannon and Miller and Gaetz and Jordan and Johnson and even MTG and the rest to realize that we’re again dealing with a faction that desires a form of government much different from what the founders intended.

One can see why Maddow wrote the book– to remind us that we’ve been here before, and that the U.S. will always be vulnerable, because of our Constitution and the freedoms it provides. Sadly, there will always be a misfit somewhere who hates us, hates democracy, and who will go to any lengths to take us down- slowly, remotely even, in unnoticeable or at least plausibly deniable ways for as long as possible, focusing on peoples’ ignorance and all that would create friction and manufactured hatred, and people taking sides.

America is indeed an experiment, a rarity on the world stage, one that demands engagement, participation, and buy-in from its citizens. And one that apparently will always invite efforts at destruction.

No, I didn’t forget about Trump. He’s just a stooge, though. A pretender who’s been allowed to hang around for too long.

A panel of experts was going on about the state of the war between Ukraine and Russia. Two of them are, I guess, optimistic about Ukraine being able to hold its own, with help from the U.S. and other countries. The other was Donnie Downer and pretty much saying Ukraine has already lost. The writing is on the wall, he maintains—Russia has 10 times the fire power, five times the population. It’s a battle of attrition. Russia will do to Ukraine what it did to Finland in 1940.

One of the more rosy-sounding panelists said that 2025 will be a better year on the battlefield for Ukraine, taking for granted, sadly, that the fucking war will still be going on in 2025.

Putin sits back, with beady eyes and a face betraying coldness and derision, and the rest of the world just sits, paralyzed to do anything besides wait for the other shoe to drop.

Making war is the one thing we humans excel at. It seems there will always be the next megalomaniac to deal with.

So it’s come to this: a former U.S. President, running for the same office again, against all reason and sanity, is reduced to hawking gold tone sneakers to raise money.

Donald Trump is of course shameless—we already knew that. But he seems to find ways to lower the bar ever further, to subterranean levels.

Sounds like he got a less-than-enthusiastic reception when he introduced his gaudy high tops at Sneaker Con, a real event, in Philly. You can’t make this stuff up.

At least one die-hard supporter has apparently indulged him, forking over $9K for a pair. And millions more are going to vote for the guy, sans the ugly Chuck Taylors.

Alabama declares a frozen embryo a human child. On one hand, it makes sense—the result of the union of human sperm and human egg can’t be anything other than a human embryo, which, if left to normal natural develpment, will result in nothing other than a fully formed human being.

So, what’s the issue? I’m not sure what’s on the other hand. There must be other considerations in play. Like custody, apparently. And liability, of course.

Wow.

The passage of time. How apparent it was as we gathered for a 100^th anniversary celebration at my home congregation.

Chartered by mostly Swedish immigrants, incorporated in 1924, still going, with a history marked by growth and decline, capable pastors and those who were less so. What mostly got my attention was the grey hair, no hair, stooped frames, fuller frames, hunched shoulders, slower gaits, weathered faces.

Recognizable but… older. No surprise, yet somehow still a revelation—that it’s happening to us.

Watched Oppenheimer last night. Stunning and intense. Only complaint is that the musical score sometimes got in the way of the dialogue. It was difficult to get the gist of some conversations.

Complicated guy, to put it simply. Otherworldly brain power, intense situation. It might make one realize that most of us skate through life having done little of significance, or at least nothing that rises to the level of what Oppenheimer and his team accomplished, as they developed a world-altering technology before the Germans did.

I wasn’t aware of much of the detail, including the back-biting by Lewis Strauss- don’t know what kind of license they took with that whole dynamic. The project gave birth to great moral dilemmas, compromises, and it might have one wondering if Oppenheimer ever found peace.

We as citizens of Earth have lived with an uneasy peace ever since, but I don’t blame Oppenheimer for that. He was given a job to do in a highly charged, perilous moment, and he did it. He was a complicated, fallible, thoughtful, heroic figure. But his efforts—and those of his team—have left us walking on egg shells, constantly playing with fire, dependent every day on competent people doing the right things, which includes monitoring our aging nukes, and keeping the bad players from blowing us all to smithereens.

Colbert was quite animated on Thursday night. He offered a summary of the country’s political landscape by turning to the camera and saying, “This is fucked up,” or something to that effect.

He zeroed in on exactly the frustration many feel: many can plainly see that Trump is taking up way too much of the country’s time and energy with the multiple lawsuits and criminal entanglements—and to one degree or another is guilty of charges—but we are fearful that the wheels of justice won’t turn fast enough to keep him from doing more damage than he’s already wrought.

We’re being put through the wringer because a 77-year-old narcissistic windbag can’t behave himself. The frustration over this is liable to boil over every now and then, and reactions are inevitable. It was Colbert’s turn a couple nights ago.

R. I. P., Alexei Navalny. Another silenced voice of courage and reason. Hopefully his words and actions resonate.

Russia, what’s your problem?

Such a dark, unhappy place. At least, that’s the face we often see. Well, other than when Tucker Carlson takes a tour and reports that groceries are cheap and the subways are ornate.