I listen to certain pundits on a regular basis, and the theme of late is the breathless conjecture surrounding the next batch of charges heading Trump’s way—the latest regarding January 6.

As often happens anymore, I was shaking my head and muttering under my breath after a recent segment because it absolutely mystifies me as to how people can still be talking about Trump carrying on as a candidate in 2024, as if nothing else is going on, as if there is no constant dark rain cloud above his head.

It’s obvious that many Republicans consider all the indictments a badge of honor of some sort, or as undeserved injustices, nuisance impediments that will just be disregarded and can’t keep Trump from running. It’s difficult for me to get my head around this.

It never ceases to conjure up disdain for the man who obviously doesn’t care about dragging America into the weeds while he tries to manipulate and exact revenge and create an alternate narrative.

I suppose it’s no surprise that he can be doing this to the country he so sarcastically loves. He obviously has no shame. There can’t be many left who haven’t yet seen him for who and what he truly is– a spoiled middle schooler, and the biggest fake out there.

Seems like it’s coming down to a fight to see which America is gonna prevail: the one that makes an attempt to be color blind and where the rule of law is paid more than lip service, or the one that’s resurfaced over the last few years and maintains a death grip on lily whiteness and Christian Nationalism and spews the same old nonsensical fearmongering and paranoia that have always been here, I guess.

The jury’s out, which is a sad commentary. Maybe this seemingly perpetual tug of war is the best we’ll ever aspire to.

Sounds like another indictment is about to land, this one re January 6. Jack Smith and company are doing what they can to make sure Trump is unavailable for 2024. I hope it works.

And how about MTG? Wow, she has really drunk the Kool-Aid when it comes to defending the Donald—she gets so animated and indignant and angry! It’s a great show and sounds like she’s actually convinced of his innocence, spewing all the cliched talking points certain Republicans are still so fond of carting out.

Bottom line, as Brian Tyler Cohen notes, is that Trump is an indicted felon in multiple cases! And hopefully, at some point, a convicted one. He has zero business being a candidate for POTUS. His insistence on continuing to run should be the final nail in his coffin, because HE DOESN’T GIVE A RAT’S ASS ABOUT AMERICA.

He’s just a sore loser who doesn’t want to go to jail.

The forecast summary in the task bar simply read “polluted air,” nothing more. A refreshing cut to the chase.

Six hundred and seventy wild fires burning in Canada, only half of them being tended to. Almost 24 million acres burned this season, roughly the areal size of Indiana, already twice as much forest acreage lost than in any of the previous ten years.

But all is well on the blue marble. Just ask pretty much any Republican, or management at ExxonMobil.

Just saw that Russia is claiming it apparently has a sufficient stockpile of cluster munitions to strike back, which is fantastic news. Now Ukraine can be turned into the latest unlivable hellscape polluted with unexploded ordinance for generations to come.

So this is what it’s come to—just throw the kitchen sink at them and to hell with the aftermath.

War should be beneath us.

After I write something as negative and cynical as the last entry, I find myself with a case of regret the next day, like I overstated the feelings and want to take some of it back. But the remorse eventually passes and I end up not wanting to take any of it back. It’s what I’ve felt for a long time—that it seems like we’re motivated by shallow things here in America.

What have we fought to protect? What way of life are we supposed to be so dedicated to dying for? Is what we have now what the founding fathers envisioned? Because sometimes it has the feel of a runaway train that’s bouncing down the tracks, too caught up in acquiring things and only reinforcing the difficulty of being even a little selfless.

America exists in reality and as an ideal. The ideal has only been partially realized. There is a long way to go before we are what many come here hoping to find.

All this talk of shattered dreams and disillusionment over the increasingly elusive American Dream just doesn’t cut it for me, begging the question, “Why the long face?”

Is this the goal of everyone’s life? To make enough money so we can have all the material possessions one could possibly want—a house or two, a vehicle or three, the best schools, the best toys, privileges galore, endless opportunities for our children, bragging rights, a safe neighborhood, a garage full of crap that ends up being yard sale fodder and stuff with which we saddle our heirs when we die? And then count it all as admirable achievement? And then be able to tell your children that they can do the same, only better? Is this the goal, the Holy Grail of existence– fulfilling some mindless patriotic duty in the name of shallow pursuits?

Sometimes it seems we have it all wrong, that we add unnecessary weight to our shoulders by making consumption part of a contract we all must honor. We foster blindness, isolation, hubris, a lack of awareness of a bigger world and any sense of obligation beyond that to ourselves. It’s as if a good job and a house of our own are some sort of birthrights or the stuff of lofty aspiration, like success is measured in quantities and accumulation and trophies on a shelf.

It’s no wonder the world is burning. We’ve shortchanged ourselves and others, counted unsustainability as achievement, in pursuit of too much that crumbles and degrades slowly and robs the earth and fouls the air we breathe.  

-Not only are the writers on strike, but now the actors are gonna walk out. Oh, the humanity! What are we gonna do now?!

What are we gonna do now?

-State Farm is doing what all good corporate neighbors do: writing no new policies in Florida. They’ve already done the same in California. It’s never been about giving people peace of mind. It’s always been about what’s profitable, good for business. Maybe they’ll be soon calling it a day in Vermont, too?

Mother Nature is always offering up curve balls. What’s an actuary to do?

Have you tried driving through Connecticut lately? Or NYC? Or Chelmsford, MA on a Friday afternoon on I-495? Or, most likely, any other thickly settled, highly populated area of the United States?

Did you have a moment when you thought to yourself, “This is insanity. Where are all these people headed? Where will they park once they get there? How close are we to irreversible, permanent gridlock?”

Did you read a while back that NYC is floating the idea of levying an entrance fee on people coming into Manhattan? Twenty-three bucks! Did you know it cost $17 as an out-of-stater to cross the George Washington Bridge? It’s much more if you’re driving an 18-wheeler.

Our nation is crying out for suitable public transit but we still don’t have the stomach for parting with our own vehicles. I’m as guilty as anyone on that score. What we’re seeing possibly has us saying to ourselves, “This can’t be sustainable.”

Multiply the congestion one sees in their own neck of the woods by a factor of, what, a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand? Then extrapolate to include similar scenarios all over the planet.

And yet, people can, with a straight face and much passion, say that we are having no effect when it comes to an accelerated warming of the planet’s atmosphere. Truly remarkable.

It’s the average global temperature for this past Thursday, the third day last week that a new record high was set, as half the planet experiences winter.

The topic du jour is the weather, normally the go-to conversation filler when nothing else comes to mind. What makes it front page news at the moment are the merciless heat and scorching sun being endured all over but felt most acutely in the south and southwest.

It’s foolish not to associate these things with decades of burning coal and petroleum products, which have released tons of CO2 into the air. Turns out there are consequences for this of which we’ve long been aware. We’ve known long enough to have heeded the warnings of scientists and environmentalists. Long enough to have curbed the damage done to the air we breathe, and to have reversed or at least significantly slowed the upward trend in air temperatures that is wreaking havoc on ice sheets, and ocean water, and storm formation and intensity.

And, who knows, hastening our demise as a species? Nah, that’s just the crazy talk of the liberal media, and Democrats who eat babies and love Communism and float all sorts of theories and want to take away everyone’s freedom.

Nanny state, my ass, right? The people who are truly in the know would love to invite you to their bunkers in the hills, where there are plenty of AR-15s to go around and enough MREs to satisfy the hunger of even the hardiest foil hatter. It doesn’t matter what the weather is when you’re waiting for Armageddon.

Or when you’re the mega-rich CEO of a fossil fuel behemoth and millions of people keep eating out of your hand, keep consuming what you’re more than happy to keep selling.