There is substantial opposition among Japanese citizens to the Olympic Summer Games, which are scheduled to start in three weeks or so. Apparently, there is potential for another COVID surge, and the people of Tokyo and elsewhere are not ready to welcome anyone into the country. Makes sense to me.

You’d never know that this opposition even exists here in America, based on the publicity and the build-up and the blind insistence that the games must go on. The advertising here gives no hint of the growing sentiment that the games should just be cancelled, or postponed again.

There was an article from one of the newsfeeds yesterday saying basically that to hold the games at this point would be a moral disaster. “From mere disaster to outright atrocity,” according to a Huffington Post article. It feels that way to me. The U.S. appears to be ignoring the warning signs and the unrest in Japan, instead plugging the games with the cutesy logo 202One, in hopes of rallying the nation?

Full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes and the continued presence of the pandemic. It’s all about money, as usual. Forget about the concerns of the local citizenry. Too many billions have been invested to turn back now. Too many spoiled, entitled, opinionated American athletes clamoring about all the years of training and sacrifice, yada, yada, yada…

Let the athletes compete without the spectators. Would that suit? Keep in mind that Japan has a surprisingly low vaccination rate and the pandemic is still happening.

“7 Reasons to be Extremely Optimistic About the Economy Right Now…” Really? When the adjacent headline might as well read “Record Temps in Siberia… Or elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest and Canada”?

This is exactly why the earth is frying people. We avert our eyes and try to make believe the warming is just something that happens every so often. And we focus on some other topic that serves as a distraction, makes us feel better about things.

We’re not long for this world, if this is how we address a climate disaster IN PROGRESS. These aren’t warning shots across the bow. The assault has started.

It feels like even if Democrats can get certain legislation voted into law, half the country won’t abide by it anyway. Adoption and enforcement will be ongoing issues. It’s like screaming in an echo chamber.

How can certain issues and problems be treated in such a partisan manner? Aren’t there any needs and concerns that we simply share as human beings where money and partisan wrangling don’t gum up the works? Who is considered the patriot in all of this?

Maybe this calls for something beyond mere “patriotism,” whatever that is. One person’s patriotism is another’s delusional thinking.

So now it’s the Delta variant. Even more contagious than the Alpha variant that tore through the UK a while ago. It’s largely unvaccinated people being affected, though there have been a number of break-through cases in fully vaccinated folks. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Of course, there is no hope of the Always Trumpers and vaccine deniers ever latching on to the principal of mutation. They’re not ready to embrace the reality that as long as the virus has a steady supply of unprotected bodies to infect, it also has the capability of changing its genetic structure and becoming more difficult to control.

It’s a witch’s brew of ignorance and stubbornness.

I’m not a huge risk taker. I’m not trying to impress anybody, not trying to prove anything, except maybe to myself. I’ve never been a big proponent of the belief that personal growth is the be-all and end-all, the number 1 priority in life, as if self-improvement is all that matters, where the next things I do need to be bigger and better and even more dangerous than what has come before. This strikes me as grossly self-serving, and a misunderstanding of what freedom means.

Not everything I do needs to challenge me, needs to be like scaling El Capitan without ropes. Where does that all end, and at what end is one hoping to arrive? Maybe arriving isn’t the point? Frankly, this mindset exhausts me and I fight it like antibodies fight pathogens in the bloodstream. I resent the pressure and the expectations of having to find another mountain to climb.

Which all probably makes me sound like a stick in the mud. 

I’m all for being curious and learning things, and traveling to places I’ve never been. I’m not against being proactive or aspiring to some level of accomplishment, and I realize that being human inherently involves a certain level of risk. Facing our fears and all that…  It’s just that life presents its share of opportunities for growth without forcing the issue. It often comes down to what we do when they come along. Whether we say yes or no to them. 

I don’t think getting vaccinated for Covid-19 rises to the level of an accomplishment, something for which we need to be rewarded. In some ways, it’s an unremarkable thing, from the perspective of the recipient. What’s much more remarkable is the vaccine’s availability in the first place. And our reward is avoidance of getting really sick, or not dying.

Being vaccinated means that the virus is stopped in its tracks when it encounters me or anyone else who has been vaccinated. In a small way, I’m doing my part to bring this scourge to its grisly end.

Of course there is a certain level of risk involved! Of course we don’t know for sure what’s going to happen 10 years down the road! However, vaccine testing and analysis done up to the point of approval and since then has confirmed not only their efficacy—their effectiveness against the virus and many of its variants—but also that they are, by and large, safe for the vast majority of us.

Our lives are inextricably linked to one another. Situations come along where we all benefit from swimming in the same direction. The current poisonous political climate and related abuse of social media have made this difficult to do, and we have suffered immensely as a result.

I hesitate to describe getting vaccinated as an obligation we all have. I realize that some folks, for medical reasons, are hesitant or cannot receive the shot(s). But if the excuse is born of misinformation or stubbornness, or a misplaced sense of invincibility or patriotism, then let’s hope that our unvaccinated neighbors and friends and family will have an epiphany and see the light.

Echoing an old story, we have been sent a helicopter to rescue us from the flood waters. In the form of vaccines.                            

We are not capable of acting with civility and altruism except in short bursts. Our default mode is self-preservation, looking out for ourselves and those closest to us. This, it seems to me, is why the Christian baptismal calling, or most any religious calling, is so foreign, so hard. It forces us to turn to God for help, who is or isn’t really here.

There. I said it. It doesn’t feel good to say it. It feels risky and dangerous, traitorous, faithless, sinful, wrong. Heartbreaking. But it is honest. The thing about belief in God is that no one can say God exists with anything approaching full confidence. Such a statement is always tinged with a mix of doubt and hope, but not unshakeable confidence. It is a faith statement, after all.

I’ve never understood how some people can claim unwaveringly that God exists. I’ve never been impressed or moved by this. More often the feeling is closer to suspicion, or sympathy. How can anyone be so (gullible, naive) … sure?

I wonder what gave Mother Teresa pause, what fed her discouragement and doubt in her periods of waning faith. I guess I should read up on that.

Personally speaking, I find it difficult to move beyond what sounds more and more plausible with each passing day: religion is balm for when times are hard, a gap filler, a blueprint for addressing our fear of death, a hoping for something more than what we see. And there’s a growing sense that this is all it’s ever been.

Apart from the religious lunatics on the right, the loudest voices are skeptics or self-professed atheists, and I must say that the atheists are making much more sense. I don’t know as I’d go as far as Ron Reagan or Bill Maher and flout my atheism (I guess I still wonder about a lightning bolt, or karma), but there is a certain appeal or logic to the atheist’s argument. It’s certainly easier, in a way.

Wow, the more things change the more they stay the same, I guess—there will always be Athenians and others who prefer logic and reason over a leap of faith. Anyhow, perhaps Mother Teresa’s dis-ease grew more acute over time- time in which the suffering she saw never abated and God seemed indifferent, impotent, or just nowhere to be found. A toll is taken when you’re always searching but never really finding, when you feel abandonment more often than the abiding presence.

“Opiate of the masses” seems a bit harsh and Skeptical with a capital S, yet not without some basis in observed reality. And then there’s the time factor. Two thousand years is an awfully long time to wait, God’s timetable notwithstanding. Even those early descendants of Abraham didn’t have to wait this long.

What’s the hold-up? Things are getting crazy down here, and Earth is about ready to spit us out.

Tommy Gong. A now higher-profile elections official in San Luis Obispo County, California, who for many years flew below the radar and just did his job. And, apparently, did it well.

Say goodbye to Tommy Gong, because a loud ignorant minority is “concerned” he may be under the thumb of Communist China (you know, because he looks to be and is of Chinese descent, so this must be the case…) and have been pressuring and threatening him about 2020 election results.

Mr. Gong is leaving town, moving on, because why shouldn’t he? Who needs this kind of treatment, after years of doing the job well, with pride and expertise and efficiency? And accuracy.

All it takes is a few no-minds threatening violence, and good people are just gonna say, “I don’t need this.” And this is how our democracy dies.

There seems to be a tireless effort on the part of those who have no liking for Trump to find some charge that will stick, pursue some line of attack that will produce a conviction of some sort. But one could get the feeling that there is and will be nothing—despite all the current cases and efforts—that will end in a conviction. Nothing. Lots of smoke, no fire. He’s gonna outrun all of it.

And maybe this is the game for him. Maybe this is all he lives for, what gets him out of bed in the morning. He enjoys this endless cat and mouse. What could be sweeter for the person who aspires to nothing more than being a 75-year old attention hound?

This has all been the textbook definition of an exercise in futility. He’s a boil on our collective ass, America. We need to stop giving him the time of day. Though ignoring him probably isn’t going to make him go away.

It’s a sad situation. The manchild has no sense of propriety, no plans on exiting the stage for the good of the country. It’s always been about what’s right for him, to the exclusion of everything and everyone else.

I’m beginning to sense that Joe Biden isn’t going to have what it takes to stem the tide of lunacy. He looks frail to me, weary, overmatched. His DOJ is sending strange signals and acting timidly. And he’s always just talked a good game, anyway. I voted for him because he wasn’t Donald Trump, and his presence in the White House at least signaled a return to some measure of sanity and rational, compassionate behavior. But he is getting older by the minute and doesn’t have much to work with in the way of Congressional support. Public support, though currently robust, seems not to matter.

Biden’s majority has been as slim as it can possibly be, and now that Joe Manchin has signaled he won’t be on board for the voting rights act, there is a slimmer chance of stemming the tide of the growing madness on the right. What is Manchin’s gig, anyway? Is he really a Republican in a Dem’s clothing? Or is he a Democrat in a red state occupying a woefully compromised seat, talking out of both sides of his mouth and just looking out for himself and his own job security?

As each day passes, it is becoming clearer to me that the wolf at the door is going to find its way back into the house. The resistance to Donald Trump and his army of sycophants and wackadoodles consists mostly of bluster and indignation, a passing shower in the midst of ever-deepening drought. No matter how wrong The Big Lie feels or actually is, there nonetheless seems to be an air of inevitability about it.

It is difficult to be optimistic about this nation’s future when so many in positions of power are holding onto the past, and the bottom line seems only to be whether one wins or loses. Victory at any cost. But that is the American way, right?