I watch my share of YouTube videos, and I came across one the other day that had a collection of traffic cam footage of accidents that happened during Elliot—the recent blizzard and bomb cyclone that crossed the country.

My conclusion after watching this mix of fender benders and life-threatening high-speed impacts is that people are or can indeed be clueless, careless idiots. An uneducated guess would place the lion’s share of blame on either younger drivers who feel bulletproof, or others who place way too much confidence in their 4-wheel drive capabilities and are operating like it’s a clear summer day.

There is no adjusting for conditions, no consideration for anyone else unlucky enough to be sharing the road. It’s either “hold my beer” or a mystifying lack of awareness that wind and blowing snow and black ice warrant a significant change in driving habits. I guess what amazes me is that, Christmas or not, there were so many people who still felt compelled to be on the road when they knew what awaited them there.

But that’s what we do, I guess. We’re not gonna let a silly blizzard keep us from a beer run or getting to Grandma’s house.

How much do we know about North Korea, besides making assumptions about its skewed priorities and that it’s basically a munitions depot?

We’ve probably seen the pictures of the Koreas at night—South all lit up, North practically dark in its entirety because, as the explanation goes, the government of North Korea has decided to invest whatever money it has in military hardware, including nuclear weapons.

So, to hell with utilities and other infrastructure, and its citizens?

The recent rumblings in that part of the world, with China flaunting fighter jets and ships, makes me think that North Korea’s chest pounding from time to time is always in the service of China– that they’ll do their best to have China’s back, in case things go south with Taiwan.

So, the latest trend is to damage electrical substations. As much as they are capable of perceiving with their perverted pea brains, the perpetrators probably consider this some sort of awesome, patriotic “strategy.” Or they just like inflicting pain and shooting things and blowing stuff up.

Either way, it’s a disturbing development that indicates the presence of some sort of blueprint, and maybe that the hardcore Trump groupies are ready to take the gloves off and go full subversive on us.

It’s Christmas Day 2022. Had to think about what actual day of the week it is (Sunday). I’ve spent some time today sitting in front of a virtual fireplace, listening to carols played in an unadorned manner on the piano.

We didn’t go anywhere for Christmas Eve worship, just sat at the kitchen table watching a couple of local online offerings on YouTube. At some point in the day yesterday I was contemplating making the effort to go to an early service locally, but that didn’t happen. The only other options were at 9pm, and that was too late for me.

It’s difficult to put into words how I’m feeling. Christmas has always held a special spot in my memory, the old feelings never too far away yet more difficult to conjure of late. A certain carol or song can still bring me back, but there’s something else going on now, and it has to do with this inner turmoil, this doubt that keeps nipping at my heels, chipping away at my understanding of things.

Perhaps at long last I’m realizing how little any of these feelings and emotions have had to do with Jesus. I feel no compulsion to attend worship, and when I watch the online services or attend in person, I am watching with a growing cynical and skeptical eye. It’s becoming a bore to me– not because things need to be spiced up, but because the words and message I hear are so bound to formula, agonizingly familiar, increasingly empty of import and meaning and relevant unpacking. It’s simply rehash and party line week after week, a lazy embellishment of chapter and verse.

I’m always listening in the hope that someone can hit a nerve, touch on a novel perspective that resonates and knocks me out of this errant orbit I seem to be settling into.

What does the family think of me? Are the kids starting to put two and two together? My actions aren’t matching what I was preaching for 26 years. I’m just drifting.

Kari Lake is the latest denier to have her case tossed. For lack of evidence.

Why do they bother? Is it really the sabotage factor, hoping to plant seeds of doubt? Might it not start working the other way? Seems like what we’re seeing are judges before whom these cases are brought who, as it turns out, are not in Trump’s pocket and seem to prefer not wasting time on such frivolous nonsense.

It’d be nice if this mindset runs its course, finally dismissed with the derisiveness it has always deserved.

It figures. I make light of the over-the-top media attention and coverage of the latest winter storm, and it turns out to be a real monster with heavy, blowing snow, a serious plunge in temps, over a million without power, multiple fatalities, scores of accidents and just an all-around mess.

I wasn’t making light of the storm or the consequences—I was reacting to what the Weather Channel and the rest do every time there’s a whiff of bad weather. They run around with their hair on fire and turn it into a media event in hopes of sustaining and bolstering viewership.

On another note, the zero tolerance Covid policy in China may have been unpopular, but now it looks like an easing of restrictions is leading to a huge uptick in cases—estimates approaching 250 million, 18% of the population. The thinking is that since people were isolating, there was no natural immunity being built up, and now people are vulnerable.

What about vaccines? I know they have their own and apparently they’re not as effective as Pfizer and Moderna. So, why don’t they buy doses of these for their people? Too proud? Not a good look politically? Still a supply issue?

And… Alex Ovechkin took over the second spot all time in goals scored, behind only Wayne Gretsky. Ovi is an iron man.

I just ordered a copy of the January 6 report. I need to read through it. I’m not a big fan of Donald Trump and I’m interested in an accounting of how he tried to get away with his latest and boldest caper.

In a recent article in The New Yorker, the reality of Trump’s misdeeds and a recounting of the hearings was laid out in review. I was reminded, for the 807th time, that what unfolded on January 6 was not a series of unrelated events. It was, rather, a concerted effort to interfere with the results of what was, over and over again, revealed to be a free and fair election with next to negligible reasons to question any result.

The simple and astonishing fact remains that Donald Trump didn’t want to be seen as a loser, so he looked for favors, employed all the tools of his particular pre-POTUS “trade” to try to finagle an outcome that made him look like a winner. The fact that what he did was incriminating and seditious mattered not at all to him. Nor does any of this matter to those who continue to support him.

After the hearings and the resultant criminal referrals, along with the lackluster results of the 2022 midterm elections due in part to a negative “Trump effect,” Trump’s approval rating lost less than a point and still hovers around 40 percent. Forty percent of Republican voters are still with him, despite everything!

Meaning the assault is likely to continue.

Another bomb cyclone! Holy cow, everyone! Batten down the hatches, build a storm shelter, raid the grocery stores, stock up on essentials, inventory your pets and children, get your affairs in order! Because Elliot is coming! And it’s gonna be bad! Worse than Diaz! Why, it’s another in a continuing series of Storms of the Century! Oh, the humanity!

!!!

Mr. Zelensky predictably received the hero’s welcome in Washington yesterday. If he got one standing ovation in his address to Congress, he got 10 or 20. He wants more of our military hardware, and I’m sure he’ll get what he wants, or at least most of it. He promised that it will be used responsibly, which has a hilarious ring to it.

What are we to take away from this bold move? We know it got a rise out of Putin, who threatened/boasted Russian troops marching on the streets of D.C. Yikes and holy shit.

Does anyone like where this seems to be heading? I know there’s always bluster and threats and assurances, but this has escalation written all over it. It’s happening before our eyes. Putin is getting what he’s always wanted, somehow. One often has the feeling with him that everything is unfolding the way he planned it, even as news reports make it sound like he’s misjudged things and has been backed into a corner.

Dulled and blunted and dismissed. This will be the Republican response to the criminal referrals from the January 6 Committee. Witch hunt, much ado about nothing, a liberal fever dream, blah, blah, blah. Back and forth they’ll continue to go, the Right with a long memory for supposed wrongs perpetrated by the Dems, chomping at the bit for their chance to get even, i.e. just make a mockery of governance as the majority in the House.

The Committee has done stellar work, leaving a damning mountain of evidence for public consumption, if the public wants to make the effort to actually read about this. At least there will be a record. It remains to be seen if the Justice Department will take the unprecedented next step of indicting Trump and Eastman. Whether they do or don’t, someone is gonna be pissed.

If there is such a thing as justice, though, it needs to be served– in a heaping helping to someone who took up space in the Oval Office for four years, who claimed to be POTUS but had no idea what that meant.