COP26 is unfolding in Glasgow. Sounds like, once again, an exercise in window dressing, a bunch of leaders coming together to pay lip service to environmental concerns. And once again, Greta Thunberg is riling things up, cutting though the BS, rallying young and old to demonstrate and get the attention of a bunch of people beholden to fossil fuel lobbyists and a world (er, a northern hemisphere) full of people who are used to not giving a second thought to how they live their lives.

The simple truth is that we’ve given ourselves no leeway, no wiggle room anymore. Our habits, lifestyles, sense of entitlement are all on the chopping block. Our whole economic way of life lies at the root of this. We’ve been careless and carefree for so long that we can’t really envision changing our ways.

Cold turkey probably would be calamitous, but we as a world have to start somewhere, start a trend toward some level of selflessness. Very painful, no doubt. The Kardashians will likely have a hard time with this, along with all those who have preyed upon a pervasive sense of shallowness and superficiality and god-awful selfishness.

So, do we all need to return to living in huts, revert to clans and fiefdoms and cans with string, and smoke signals? Maybe this is the fear—that in order to save the environment, we’d have to give up too much, we’d have to regress and learn to live with less. For many, there would be no going back, and maybe our options need not be so stark. It’s just that we’ve wasted so much time, frittered away precious days and years listening to the wrong voices, refusing to believe that things are as bad as people are saying.

The Cuyahoga River literally caught fire—for the 13^th time since the late 1860s!—in 1969. Fifty-two years later, it looks like we’re still having trouble putting two and two together.

Many reporters ask dumb questions, often focused on some variation of “Who’s to blame?” Or “How much blame do you feel you should be shouldering?” (“I don’t know. You want a percentage…?!”) They want to be the ones who get their sound bite aired on the nightly news, want to appear tough and probing and relentless, earning kudos for themselves and their networks.

Word of advice: formulate better questions. Or just don’t bother. We’re no better informed for having endured the vanity.

Our freedoms take a back seat to expediency with regard to eradicating a pandemic.

Enough of this nonsense about “you can’t tell me what to do with my body.” People aren’t being told that they have to carry a baby to term or choose one from a list of 2 careers they must pursue. They are being offered a potentially life-saving vaccine that protects them and others around them, and also helps limit mutations, the development of variants.

This is a pandemic. It’s not the flu. If only it was the flu. But it’s not– STILL! It’s a fucking pandemic. You don’t trust doctors and actual infectious disease experts but you trust Joe Rogan and Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson? Unwrap yourselves and put your damned flags away. A pandemic isn’t the time to get all misty-eyed about America. It’s a time for clear-eyed, sensible behavior that leads to a sustained low level of infection, which cannot be achieved if enough of us are believing that Covid-19—or whatever pathogen is in the pipeline waiting to pounce—is made up, or somehow isn’t real.

I read somewhere recently that we’re reaching the point where nobody in America will be left unaffected by the virus—whether it’s contracting the illness or dying from it oneself, or having a family member or significant other suffering in some way from it. It’s real. Get that through your thick skulls. It’s real, and it’s been real all along.

You all suffer from some other disease that’s running rampant, and it’s not the result of a microscopic virus. It’s just sheer stubbornness and ignorance. A lethal brand of group think, the product of stupefying ignorance and gullibility.  

How is one person wielding so much power in the Democratic party right now? What is Joe Manchin up to?

The connection seems almost too obvious—Manchin represents a coal-rich state, and the piece of Build Back Better that looks to suffer the most is the environmental piece? Who is Manchin working for?

Joe Biden is no FDR, and these aren’t the 1930s. Is anyone else wondering if Biden has the stamina to finish his term, never mind prevail in pushing his agenda?

So the inflation trends that had been described as short-term bumps because of Covid are now predicted to be longer lasting. Great. Nice time to retire.

Donald F. Trump. You treated the pandemic as if it wasn’t happening, so enough people did the same. It took hold and wreaked havoc and upset everything, long term. Supply chain interruptions, shortages, employment shifts, a deterioration of mental health in general.

This is on you, you fucking blindingly selfish idiot. You had the power to set the tone early on and you chose ignorance. You blew it, Donald. You blew it big time.

America has always been a fragile thing.

As much as it likes to brag about its military strength or manufacturing capabilities (?), or whatever else people get all puffed up about—its inherent “greatness”—America has always been beholden to intangibles, mainly that people play by a basic set of rules, honor certain institutions, and checks and balances.

We seem to be careening toward a situation where laws are just pesky roadblocks, nothing more than minor inconveniences ripe for brazen circumvention or simply ignoring. There is no such thing as common good. There is a fatal emphasis placed on economic “solutions” that don’t “float all boats.” It really is about paying lip service to solutions while the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class disappears.

Politicians make promises because they know their constituents are waiting for hope-filled sound bytes. But all they’re doing is trying to hold off the wolves at the door. They know that our ills run deep, and that there is no appetite for cooperation, no collective will to work together, no unified vision.

The deep divide we currently see is not going to heal itself, yet we seem to be willingly moving further apart and building soundproof walls. And making peace with the futility.

“All this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination and heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country’s pride.” — Bertrand Russell, on World War I

I came across this quote, which I had taken the time to write down, as I was cleaning off a bookshelf in anticipation of retirement. I’m glad I found it, because it speaks eloquently and clearly with words and phrasing that often elude me. No, there is no world war currently vying for our attention, but it feels sometimes like it wouldn’t take much to start one. And it feels like whatever the reason, or precipitating incident, or contrived excuse, the unfolding senseless hell would be just as much in our power to avoid as to initiate.

Forget about the rationales– Good versus Evil, the inevitability. The necessity. The schoolyard-worthy “aching for a fight.” War of any scope is an unmitigated disaster, a monumental assault on and waste of human life and resources. An indicator that our evolution hasn’t taken us far enough, that we are, in essence, no better than feral cats fighting over the remains of a mouse.

Mr. Russell’s words cut me to the bone, because there never seems to be a shortage of “official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, without imagination or heart.” Add to that thin-skinned, easily offended, delusional, power-hungry, and apparently without conscience, consigned to the belief that humans should all live and believe in the way they think best (or most beneficial to them), that human lives are cheap and expendable, simply a resource like bullets and oil, a means to an end.

The last phrase, “… that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country’s pride,” feeds what might be the most infuriating thought of all: that the most infamous “leaders” in world history never really grew up.

Strategy or sour grapes? A plan, or just monumental stupidity?

It’s been less than 24 hours since Trump released another of his rants disguised as press releases, but this one is a doozy. He has declared that no Republicans shall vote in any election in 2022 and 2024. Apparently because Donald Trump says so, and you just can’t trust the results?

The rest of the world must, by now, be thinking, “Yup, America has lost its shit.”

It looks like the “Stop the Steal” clamor is here to stay. Long-time, competent local election officials are deciding to quit, being forced out and replaced by one foil hatter after another. At least the strategy is revealed.

Adherents are convinced and committed, they’ve swallowed the swill, taken the bait hook, line, and sinker, no turning back. These folks are impressionable, lost, holding on, driven in whatever direction this foul wind is blowing.

It’s difficult not to feel like we’re at the on ramp for the Twilight Zone.

Donald Trump tapped into the darkness of the human psyche. There’s nothing virtuous about him.

He is all calculation, a 75-year old toddler, glory seeker, and empty vessel. He is appealing to peoples’ worst fears, feeding on ignorance and provincial views, and economic despair.

Why are we still talking about him? He’s nothing more than an annoying rash that won’t go away. And the furthest thing from… a patriot.