A few months back, or maybe it was several years ago, I posted a blog on the topic of the USWNT, perhaps better known as the U.S. women’s World Cup soccer team.

They had just won their second consecutive cup and were really crowing about it. They kept crowing about it at some level all the way up to the current Women’s World Cup competition being held in Australia and New Zealand, producing promotional material and ads that really tried to drive home the point that the rest of the world was, once again, going to have a hard time stopping the Americans.

In that blog, I was reacting to what seemed to me an uncharacteristic, over-the-top amount of bravado and boasting, and ended by saying I hoped the U.S. team got their asses kicked in 2023, mainly because boasting and trash talk get old quickly for me and I really can’t stand it. Basically, I was hoping the U.S. would get its comeuppance, suffer some sort of karmic disaster.

It seems that has just happened, as the U.S. lost to Sweden on penalty kicks—and apparently a penalty kick that was initially stopped by the American goal tender but still managed to somehow cross the goal line. Ouch.

In reality, the U.S. and Sweden are probably evenly matched teams, playing to a nil-nil draw in regulation and extra time. But someone had to win, and this time it wasn’t the United States.

I can hear the commentary already, and can envision what’s gonna be in the print editions tomorrow morning: a disaster for the U.S women, much soul-searching, calls for the manager’s head, questionable talent, poor chemistry, a reevaluation of the whole program. And so on. But in addition to whatever shake-ups may come, what also is happening is that the rest of the world has caught up to us, and 2019 may have been the last cup we’ll win for a while.

Going forward, maybe less gloating and distractions off the pitch, and more focus on what happens on it, will keep us competitive, yield more preferable results.

The Seinfeld defense? One commentator sees this as possibly giving the prosecution a run for its money. Are you eff’n kidding me?

The reasoning goes that since Trump truly believed the election was stolen, everything that has followed is based on that belief. Except isn’t there witness testimony that Trump was told on numerous occasions… oh, never mind.

This can’t work. This cannot hold water. Keep an eye on the prize, people. Look at this hoodlum’s body of work. He’s at a point where he’s gonna try anything to stay out of jail.

Don’t let this Hail Mary gain traction.

It took Trump about 24 hours to challenge the conditions of his release, in the form of a text on Truth Social to the effect of “You come after me, I’ll come after you.” A blanket threat issued by someone who’s probably feeling a bit like a cornered rat and somehow still unassailable.

Keith Olbermann offered up a scorchingly loud and animated argument for putting him away asap. No more leeway, no more of Trump’s tiresome shenanigans and bullshit impunity. Olbermann insisted that the judge needs to put him away until the trial. Right now.

Glenn Kirschner and Cy Vance aren’t quite as keen on that approach, recognizing the potential for violence that always accompanies a situation like this involving the former President of the United States. But is it wise to keep playing Trump’s game, keep deferring to the possibility of blood in the streets—a concern, it seems, that doesn’t have as much bite as it once did?

It’s time to call Trump’s bluff. He keeps up his diarrhea of the mouth? It gets nipped in the bud, and he spends the rest of his time before trial behind bars.

As loud and outlandish as Olbermann may seem to many, he’s right about the double standard of justice— there’s always been one tier for Trump, or no law he can’t ignore or break or circumvent, and another tier for everyone else.

Kirschner seems to think the judge will keep him on a very short leash from this point forward. “Enough rope to hang himself” is the way he put it. I hope that’s exactly what happens, even though there should be no more leash, no more rope. Trump no longer deserves any benefit of any doubt. The abuse and deception and lies and general ugliness have gone on way past long enough.

It’s the futility. It’s too much like banging heads against walls, screaming into a void. At best, talking over and past each other.

How can we be at such odds, so far apart? Is it like this in other countries, or is it more the peculiar nature of this American experiment? We’re the opposite of a coherent beam of light.

Back in the mid-80s to early 90s, I helped make high-powered CO2 lasers for a living, the best job I ever had. Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation… Circulate CO2 gas and introduce high voltage under vacuum, in a tube equipped with highly reflective mirrors properly placed and aligned, and voila: stimulated emission, photons bouncing off those mirrors at a high rate of speed and eventually all traveling in the same direction, leading to intensely high energy levels.

The raw beam will burn a hole in a tree sixty feet away. It’ll blow a cinder block apart. Imagine what a focused beam can do. It can lase Jello, but works much better on hardened steel. That’s what happens when the beam’s component parts are all moving in the same direction and brought into focus.

I don’t see anything like this ever happening in America. There are too many moving parts, too many opinions, too many errant photons doing their own thing, bouncing all over the place. And maybe that’s as it should be? Anything approaching coherence would probably be viewed as anathema to the American ethos.

Most of us have been able to move beyond Covid-19 despite the initial incompetence and denial and scatterbrained effort, and also because a subset of enterprising and capable scientists had been on the same page in having developed the building blocks for a workable vaccine. The closest we’ve all come to being on the same page and focused on solutions in challenging times might be a war effort eighty years earlier.

Our current way of life isn’t being threatened much less than it was in the early 1940s, except now it’s mostly by forces from within, forces– including elected officials in “the party of Lincoln”– who are committed to doing their damnedest in making sure the mirrors are constantly misaligned.

Who pulls the strings at Fitch? Is it possible that the downgrading of the US credit rating is politically motivated- a way for Republicans to point to the lousy job the Biden administration is doing? Even though, by many accounts, things are looking better economically than they have in a while?

Couldn’t this just be a bald-faced cheap maneuver timed to make Joe Biden look bad? It seems to have come out of left field, taken a lot of people by surprise. What is the motivation here?

Please tell me it’s not just more high stakes dirty politics rearing its ugly head. We’ve all endured enough of that shit.

Indictment Number 3 has landed. Four counts, but they pack a punch.

Timing will be everything. Can the wheels of justice move quickly enough to keep a derelict from achieving his ends? Looks like we’re gonna find out.

Trump is a punch drunk hang nail, a runny nose, an ear ache, a bag of garbage that’s been sitting in the sun for way too long. He doesn’t possess the good sense to walk away—he’s not anywhere near that considerate or self-aware. Besides, it’s too late for that now.

He’s caused this country immense harm and he doesn’t care. He’ll look back over his shoulder at the carnage, and there will be a sparkle in his eye.

He was POTUS once.

Has it always been this way?

You watch Hannity, I watch Maddow. You think taxation is a bridge too far, I see it as an unsavory yet necessary means of collecting revenue from everybody. You apparently believe that all people are not created equal, I believe they are. You believe climate change is a liberal fever dream, I believe it is alarmingly real. You seem to think Donald Trump is all that, I believe he is a self-centered, bombastic idiot who sees this country as nothing more than his own personal ATM. You appear to have trouble with variations in color and sexuality, I’m good with all of that. You say you love Jesus yet your actions and words say something very different. I want to love Jesus but am just not sure he’s even around. You think a personal weapons arsenal is a necessity, I think such a stance is a sign of weakness and despair. You may think Stephen Colbert is a Communist. I think he’s clever and refreshingly honest and that he loves America just as much as you, and I hope he’s back on TV soon.

The list goes on. I don’t know exactly how this turns out. I suspect if resolution and bridging of differences ever does come, it will be preceded by much anguish and pain because too many of us are captive to ignorance and fear and our worst angels.

The local theater makes its marquee available to folks who pay a fee to have messages posted on it. The latest is a marriage proposal. Not sure if it’s legit or just kidding, but why would anyone kid about such a thing?

I’ve never understood why mostly men want to go this route when asking for a hand in marriage. I guess they must be ready to accept the consequences of putting their prospective spouse on the spot in front of sometimes thousands of people and even a nationwide or worldwide audience. Or maybe they haven’t thought it through.

In its purest form—if that’s possible—I guess the intent is to show this person that they’re so deeply in love that they want to shout it from the rooftops. Or maybe it’s less innocent than that. Maybe it’s just a love of spectacle. A crass, arrogant, cheap stunt.

Call me old fashioned, but a marriage proposal isn’t something the general public gets to share in. The occasion can be memorable and meaningful without the cringeworthy showmanship.

The Republican Party is such a shit show. It’s not really a collection of comedians—they’re not trying to be funny, as far as I can tell. They’re trying to be serious. And that’s funny, because their stances and statements reflect a certain hysteria that belies ignorance and provincialism and a general lack of understanding.

They’re fighting for an America that shouldn’t exist anymore. Actually, they’re not really fighting for even that. They’re just trying to hold onto power and something that looks like relevance.

Good luck with that, with the likes of Trump and DeSantis and McCarthy and Jordan at the helm. Great bunch of people they’ve got there. Real solid folks.

As we listened to the Maddow podcast Bag Man, one thing that struck me, besides the similarities with the whole Trump debacle, was the reaction of Agnew supporters, often women, to the news that their guy was being investigated for criminal behavior.

It was as if they were being told that God was on trial for bribery and extortion. And when he was finally convicted on a tax evasion charge and forced to resign, there was more of the same. Beyond disbelief, it came across as indignant, vehement denial, and it echoed strongly what we’re seeing today with Trump and his minions.

Stand back a ways and one might come to realize that the electorate– women and men– may not be all that savvy. They can be gullible, deceived, misled, lied to, and then adamantly refuse to believe they’ve been had.

This might tell us something about the validity of polling. What percentage of people polled on anything have actually done their homework and know something about the subject at hand? Or is it more like that old REO Speedwagon song?

…heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend…