“Strap on a Glock.” So says Kari Lake, a silky-voiced nuisance and mischief maker, out to settle some score, who wants a Senate seat representing the great state of Arizona. Strap on a glock, she says to the feeble-minded MAGA base just waiting for an opportunity to go ballistic over something not worth getting worked up about.

What is her problem?

She spews incendiary rhetoric and encourages violence in the lead-up to November 5, and media outlets, with nary a peep from Fox News, gladly cover just another gas-fueled dumpster fire who can’t take No for an answer.

Congrats to Scottie Scheffler, on his second Masters victory in 3 years. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, even though some think he’s boring.

Wow, I detest that word.

I guess he needs to be out there with fluorescent green pants sporting American flags, drinking a light beer and chain smoking his way around the course—you know, a character, with some quirks and charisma and a penchant for entertaining and firing up the crowd with his antics and fiery personality.

Don’t listen to any of ‘em, Scottie. You’re doing it your way, and your way is just fine.

The hush money trial is gonna be a circus. Jury selection will be a slog, Michael Cohen will be eaten alive, despite all his (lately subdued) bluster, and Trump will emerge unscathed. How’s that for optimism?

Orange Man has already violated the expanded gag order, and, as one commentator observed, may be angling for a decision of jail time, which would engender an appeal and more wasted time.

Trump has always bet on enough of us not having the patience to weather all the delays. Somehow, we have to hope that the wheels of justice keep turning, and we have to be as relentless as he has been in being ok with things getting strung out.

Then, in November, we deny him at the ballot box, even as there is no logical reason for him making it that far.

If Israel can show restraint, what might the near future look like?

Iran’s retaliatory drone and missile strike yesterday was reportedly largely thwarted, thanks to U.S, Jordanian, and I’m assuming Israeli defensive responses. In light of the growing turmoil in the region (much to Putin’s delight?), what could it mean if Israel decides not to respond to the Iranian response? Anything? Would there be any significance in an Israeli decision to interrupt the mindless cycle of tit for tat?

Or will Israel/Netanyahu file away this act of aggression and recall it later, respond ten-fold at some point down the line, and just keep the deadly stupid game going?

Isn’t there anyone who’s growing tired of this ugliness? Don’t we by now have a large enough body of evidence telling us that the back and forth hasn’t solved anything? Oh yeah… I forgot– war is good for business. Silly me.

Don’t forget to keep your God in the loop then, regarding next moves. And make sure you have your stock response and a stack of condolence letters ready for all the families who lose loved ones for no good reason, in the prime of their lives.

It’s a scourge we’ve brought on ourselves.

We don’t necessarily think of it as a scourge, because we’ve “domesticated” it to a point, used it to generate electricity for our toasters and phone chargers. And we’ve been fortunate enough to keep the crazy animals at bay, or they’ve had the good sense themselves, at least to this point, to refrain from releasing missiles with warheads sent to wreak havoc and destruction and a heinous, terrible, endlessly hellish aftermath.

I said none of that the way I wanted to, but ever since starting Midnight In Chernobyl, I have a growing disdain for anyone who wields the use of nuclear weapons as leverage or threat. They can’t, must not, be serious. To even entertain that notion is a bridge too far.

It seems unlikely that such a force could be employed in a “strategic” or limited way. Once unleashed, large swaths of the world would be rendered uninhabitable, with billions destined for annihilation, or at least a slow descent into physical decay, succumbing to ARS, acute radiation syndrome. No need to go into detail regarding what happens to a person suffering from ARS– dare to look at pictures and data, post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or the disaster at Unit 4 at the Chernobyl power station.

My beef is with the person or persons who are empty or angry or vile enough to think nuclear war is an option that could ever be put on the table. All countries who currently have nuclear capabilities should disarm and render harmless every weapon they have, regardless of how upset they’d be over such a steep financial investment being rendered all for naught.

I guess it’s too easy to say that we never should have gone there, but we know now that we must never consider going there again, if we know what’s good for us.

If we can never rise above the penchant for expanding borders and forcing our will on unwilling populations, then we owe it to each other to at least find more conventional ways to wipe “civilization” off the map.

Not sure what to make of the Crumbley sentencings. On the one hand, there apparently were opportunities for these parents to intervene and they did not. On the other hand, they’ve become scapegoats of a sort and now pay the price for the unwillingness of Congress to do anything about the proliferation and easy availability of weapons in this country—enough for more than one per each man, woman, and child living here in America.

Saying that last sentence out loud really drives home the insanity. We’re an armed camp, with enough of us, on any given day, sporting an itchy trigger finger or at least tenaciously embracing a late-to-the-party, ill-conceived interpretation of the Second Amendment that has gotten surprisingly good mileage for its adherents.

Maybe the Crumbleys were afraid of their son, afraid to intervene. Maybe they didn’t pick up on the signs, or just didn’t care. I haven’t followed the trial or sat on the jury. In any event, a precedent has been set, a message sent, for good or ill, right or wrong. The particulars of this case may have warranted the verdict, but we shouldn’t let it cloud another piece of our reality: there are too many guns available in a milieu tainted by paranoia, criminal intent, and a willing, unquestioning, maybe convenient misread.

I’ve been reading Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higginbotham. The subtitle is The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster.

I’m not sure what Russians think of it, but it certainly is a detailed foray based on available documentation and eyewitness accounts. Words like secrecy, propaganda, and myth are used to describe the aftermath. It’s an enlightening yet depressing read so far and I’m sure it’s only going to be more of those things as I go deeper.

Soviet subterfuge aside (the disaster unfolded in 1986), we live less than five miles, as the crow flies, from a nuclear power plant, and I look at the towers in a different way since starting to read this book. I hope and pray that the people who work there are at the top of their game, day in and day out, because they’re working with forces that can turn on us and make life absolutely horrifying and miserable.

In the absence of expertise and constant vigilance—and because of shoddy workmanship and unrealistic construction schedules and pressure from upper management along the way—a nuclear power plant can be a monumentally tragic accident waiting to happen. You can’t half-ass anything. You’re harnessing the power of nuclear fission. There’s no room for mismanagement or incompetence, no room for letting up or coasting or getting comfortable with your job. You keep your eyes on the ball all the time.

Those who advocate for nuclear power as a piece of the ongoing answer to our energy needs must surely recognize the ongoing risk. There is no room for complacency or a cavalier attitude. Nuclear power may contribute smaller amounts of greenhouse gases, but it’s always a calculated risk, playing with fire, in some ways a gigantic concession we make just so we can power our commerce and charge our playthings.

To speak of it as clean energy is at the very least misleading. OK, an outright lie. Any proponent has to acknowledge the attached Brobdingnagian strings, and ask if there aren’t safer ways to keep the lights on.

It appears that, to some degree, Republicans are awakening to the folly of embracing a no-compromise position on the evils of abortion, after the Arizona Supreme Court became the most recent judicial body to raise hackles, proclaiming a decision to resurrect, in this particular case, a Civil War-era statute barring the procedure except in life-threatening situations for the mother.

Even Kari Lake has seen some sort of light, though she now claims to agree with Donald Trump and his convenient stance of leaving it to the state(s) and, as Lake puts it, “her people.”

As hinted at in a previous post, Republicans appear to be trying to put some distance between themselves and the SCOTUS decision that overturned Roe v Wade– itself a ruling which had always been a tough pill to swallow for a lot of Evangelical Christians.

In fairness, principles are seemingly at stake, namely a faithful and obedient embrace of the 5th Commandment, but this has always clouded and unduly influenced what I believe to be the more consequential provisions of Roe v Wade via the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The trouble, as I see it, boils down to a difficulty in coming to terms with the separation of church and state, with a letting go of the faith-based need to intervene in and control the decision-making process of women who want to retain the right to make informed decisions about their own bodies, their own situations. It’s obviously been very difficult for anti-abortion advocates to let go of this self-righteous attitude and need for control, as if they are somehow the ones gifted with the wisdom of Solomon, the only ones who somehow know what is best.

There is no room for self-determination in such a stance, or an allowance for a just and gracious God. There is, instead, a temptation to play God, or at least to force one’s religious beliefs on people who aren’t heathens and who may not embrace those religious beliefs with the same zeal, or embrace them at all.

Everyone seems to be in a hurry. No revelation there. But every now and then it gets on my nerves.

Granted, it was the beginning of morning rush hour as I made my way to the lab for some blood work. But it’s an inevitability anymore—on my way there, and back: someone is on my tail, maybe late for work, or maybe just so geared up and harried that they only know one speed anymore. And it’s not like the route is interstate highway. For the most part, it’s hilly and bendy, one lane both directions.

Back off, I say to myself. I slow down often times, because I have a certain amount of passive-aggressive in me, and I refuse to let someone wrest control as I navigate and try to drive at a reasonable rate of speed.

Slow down, everyone. Take a chill pill.

I can tell I’m getting older. It’s like the world is moving a mile a second and I’m putt-putting along in a Model T.

The totals are gross, as in eww…. Might as well be 50 billion, or 26 billion. The amount of money spent in a presidential campaign long ago moved beyond reasonable and has languished in shameful territory for a while now.

Basically, it represents the deep pockets of special interests and influence peddlers and their voracious appetites for trying to ensure that their views prevail and their businesses benefit.

They behave as if there is some magic connection between amount donated and level of success and reciprocity. It didn’t work in 2020, for people like the Koch brothers, and hopefully again this year. Still, imagine having that kind of money to spend.

No one gives big money without expecting something in return, at least when it comes to winning elections. And even the nickel and dime donations come with expectations.

Voters with functioning bullshit meters can still have the final say, though, no matter how deep the opposition’s pockets are.