So now the real test kicks in. We as readers and observers have to decipher, and wade through the noise. The water is getting murky, so to speak, as the campus protests drag on. More people are getting involved, counter protesters are making an appearance. Who knows where they’re coming from or who might be riling them up?

We see pictures, we see the lines more definitively drawn between Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israeli sides. One picture has a group of younger white protesters, assumed to be pro-Israeli, verbally attacking a group of pro-Palestinian protesters. It’s all starting to feel staged, moving toward theater and pageantry and something that’s losing its immediacy and relevance. More like a show.

Violence has broken out in places, the whole thing has long become another political hot potato with implications for the presidential race. Just another thing about which to have an opinion and engage in finger pointing.

It feels more and more like manipulation for political purposes, including the reporting. Less effort is being exerted to parse the intricacies and acknowledge shades of gray, or to give a nod to those who are simply protesting against war in general. The essence of the “struggle” has been lost in the fog of partisanship, and demon racism appears to be rearing its ugly head.

Kristi Noem must have done the calculus before she decided to divulge that she needed to kill her 14-month old dog—in part to show potential readers/voters that she wasn’t afraid of making hard decisions.

OK.

Nevermind that she could have put the animal up for adoption, brought it to a shelter or obedience school, given it to someone who could handle it. Whatever the details actually are, however contrary and untrainable the dog was, this seems like something that was not necessarily worth sharing with the general public, and as a bit of a boast at that.

Stuff like this only adds fuel to the perceptions many have of far-right politicians. It’s like many of them have several screws loose, synapses that aren’t firing. They see things differently but in a more skewed, strange, even creepy way, like they grew up missing something, perhaps under the thumb of people who messed with their heads.

One might think that Ms. Noem would have anticipated the possibility of blowback here, but maybe not. Somehow, where she was coming from, her decisions and actions would be portrayed as virtuous.

Maybe the liberal media is making a mountain out of a mole hill, but in a country where pets– and dogs in particular– are often treated better than humans, Ms. Noem’s revelations come across as cold-hearted, and more than slightly tone deaf.

But let it never be said that she can’t handle a firearm. That ought to gain her some good will, sell some books.

A lot of words have become cliché because of their seeming overuse. One of these is “xenophobic.”

The latest headline is that President Biden has accused Japan and India—two of our needed allies— of being xenophobic. He’s probably not off base in his claims– various cultures around the world make no bones about their desire for purity, for “unadulterated” DNA. It’s just that one might wonder why this is news now, when only recently people were talking about how much the U.S needs Japan and India as allies, given the indisputable emergence of China and its no limits relationship with Russia.

There are those in this country for whom the label would seem to apply, namely the Republican “Freedom” Caucus, along with governors in southern border states. Well, and probably millions of Americans who have bought into the ugly effluence gushing from Trump’s pie hole at the behest of people like Stephen Miller.

What is it, exactly, that these people have against those who, despite what we may see and hear on a daily basis from the paranoid Right, prefer to see America as the shining city on a hill, a place that can offer them escape from the hell they’re running from? The fact that so many want to come here says a lot about where they’re coming from, doesn’t it?

There’s a difference between working out a border policy that takes into account the monumental tasks of processing and assimilation and the myriad attendant needs, and harboring a hands-off attitude of suspicion and even hatred of anyone who isn’t white and (Protestant?) Christian.

Citizenship in America demands a fair amount of all of us, including an ongoing effort to tamp down the irrational suspicion and fear, and to recognize the humanity of those who are making mindboggling journeys to get here.

And dare to take a look at your own family trees, for crying out loud!

Ah, Gettysburg. Haven’t been there in almost five years. I miss the place. It’s always been nice to head there in springtime, when the redbud is blooming and before the crush of summertime visitors commences.

We lived there for four years. It felt, and still feels like a privilege.

And there it is: the reason for the timing of moving marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug.

It’s not only because it would revisit the criminality of possession and remove certain barriers to employment and education opportunities, but also because it’s an election year and maybe it will help Joe Biden’s flagging poll numbers with younger voters.

Nothing like flagging poll numbers to heighten a sense of urgency.

The student protests are fine. This is what college students do, though they need to be prepared for pushback from campus administrators, police and other law enforcement bodies when they start occupying buildings and offering up antisemitic sentiments.

Protesting probably gives them a sense of purpose and belonging, gives voice to their idealism, and maybe it gets them out of classes. But it’s difficult not to question the intensity of their civil disobedience. There often seems to be a gathering of steam coupled with the aspect of unrealistic demands, a tendency to jump on a bandwagon for a while, simply because it’s something to do, and not necessarily something they’re passionate about, or convicted by.

That being said, I don’t know what’s going on in their heads. I’m sure some are motivated by the senselessness unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank. Divestment from anything associated with Israel appears to be at the root of student demands, but I guess I wonder if this is all a bit of an overreaction.

And what role do current politics, including a presidential election, play in all of this? What about Russian influence, or other players who have a stake in the outcome in November? Is this unrest organic, or is there a component of nefarious outside influence that has roiled the waters?

David Brooks says watch out for the Chicago Democratic convention—it has the potential to be a replay of 1968. It’s almost as if someone’s been studying their history and dusting off an old playbook…

… in hopes of getting Donald Trump, of all people, back in office? Can’t happen.

As long as we’re on the topic, what gives with people who build where they probably know they shouldn’t be building?

They put a million-dollar home next to the ocean and then cry and get indignant when zoning authorities and insurance companies balk at rebuilding and continued coverage after it gets washed away by a no longer rare storm of the century?

I understand the desire to be close to the water, but is there any practical thinking going on, given the increasing likelihood of a dangerous storm rendering your dream home a pile of matchsticks, or at best leaving your fortress the only building left standing up and down the shoreline, and leaving you the poster child for stubbornness and an outsized sense of entitlement?

Practicality and wisdom go right out the window. And maybe out to sea.

The tornadoes in the Midwest have been of the monster variety—dark, ugly, indiscriminate vortices tearing apart brick walls, rendering whole blocks and housing developments piles of rubble. There’s little to salvage, prompting blank stares and questions like, “What do we do now? Or “Where do we start?”

One minute everything’s fine, the next it’s all gone. In less time than it’s taken to write these few sentences.

I’m sure people are hoping their diligence in keeping up with insurance premiums will soften the blow, give them a bit of hope. But they probably shouldn’t hold their breath. The frequency and extent of these disasters means people will be waiting for their checks, and eventually insurance companies will be revealed for what they’ve always been: nothing more than a money-making scheme looking out for their own financial viability.

To hear Rachel Maddow tell it, the Republican party is backing a bunch of clowns for various seats around the country. And the clips she showed last night corroborated her assessment, perhaps no more glaringly than a woman at a Washington state Republican gathering who read something off her phone that denounced democracy—in part because she and the rest of the zombies are afraid any mention of any word containing “democrat” or its variations will give undue attention and credit to the Democratic party.

I’m pretty sure I heard that right.

One of the two major political parties in this country has gone off the rails, lost its mind, and it’s not the Democrats. The Republicans are just saying stuff that must be coming from somewhere. Is it homegrown nonsense, or might this mindset be fertilized by the firehose of bullshit being pumped in from Russia or elsewhere?  Are these people capable of thinking for themselves, looking around, asking questions, noticing things?

Is life really that bad for them, or is this all about following Trump’s lead, buying into the darkness, doubling down, embodying the lies regardless of conditions on the ground and the appeals to wake up?

It’s headshakingly crazy– how deeply the con has burrowed.  

Trump has forced us to think about things we’ve never had to think about, which isn’t something he gets to be proud of. It merely speaks to his sickness, his bottomless needs, his narcissistic tendencies, his stunning selfishness.

Equally stunning and mystifying is the level of support he still has, despite plentiful evidence that he is a damaged human being incapable of empathy or compassion, only in it to win it for himself.

Seventy million throw-away votes, coming right up.