Everyone thinks they’re smart and those other people are dumb. Seems one or the other must be wrong, or right. It’s difficult to find terms that don’t insinuate a certain exclusiveness or judgment. If everything is relative, though, then maybe everyone does possess some degree of “rightness.” Yikes.

It’s just hard not to think that many are buying a line that reeks of faux patriotism and fear of difference. They’re unduly influenced by people who don’t want things to change, people who need unquestioning loyalty and adherence to “the way things have always been” (read: “the way I need things to be”).

I don’t know if there is anyone who always thinks for themselves, but those who try probably aren’t watching Fox News regularly or worshiping at the feet of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Lauren Boebert. You gotta be able to read between the lines. You have to be able to make peace with the fact that America is not infallible, that it’s not as pure and blameless and great as a whole freaking television network would have you believe, but at the same time that it is under attack by a foreign government (think hammer and sickle) that would love nothing more than to tear America apart.

I used to embrace that old chestnut: “America. Love it or leave it.” Not anymore, not for a while now. It’s just not that simple. Unquestioning loyalty? Sorry, can’t do it. And yet… somewhere under and amidst the flaming rhetoric and visceral discord and the voices trying to drown each other, there still exists the dream of a place that is guided by ideals, and shockingly color blind. I don’t mind looking for that place, working toward that kind of nation.

Maybe this is where we get stuck, though—always on the journey, never arriving, unable to agree on what that more perfect union should look like. Mired, instead, in this god-forsaken place where some people are magically better than “those people.”

After the euphoria of landing a job wears off, there is the matter of actually doing the job. The time interval between those two realities was never very long for me, and I wasn’t very good at the second part. I always overstayed my usefulness because I needed a paycheck, and the prospect of moving to another call was hard on my wife. I came to understand the potential mobility as something that came with the territory, but there wasn’t just me to think about.

It’s Good Friday. First time in 28 years, counting internship and the extra field work, that I haven’t had a service to think about. I don’t miss the prep part or the stress of Holy Week and Easter, but there is something missing somehow. We haven’t been physically attending anywhere since the middle of October last year. The virtual visits to various online offerings are… something, but of course they’re not the same. More of a conscience soother than truly edifying. I have to say I don’t so much miss the worship time as notice its absence– there’s a void where something used to be. I don’t know if that speaks of a longing, or just stating the obvious. I will say that between a bit of Covid hesitancy but more so just not feeling a sense of urgency to commit to attending anywhere, it has felt a bit like being unmoored. I’m not sure if this is Augustinian restlessness until my heart rests in God, or if I’m just another creature of habit simply coming to grips with a change in routine. 

Lots of time for review and assessment the last couple of weeks. I fractured the radial head in both arms on April Fool’s Day– not that that coincidence means anything whatsoever, other than wishful thinking that somehow it didn’t really happen. You know… since it was April Fool’s Day. Anyway, the healing process has afforded me plenty of downtime, which I have used in large part to sit in front of this laptop and record whatever comes to mind. I’ve found myself treating the ongoing mindlessness in Ukraine, along with other news items and random things that pique my interest or stir up some feeling.

And I need to acknowledge the great joy of having a partner in life who has literally fed me, early on, and continues to help me get dressed, wash my hair and keep me clean, and in general will keep an eye on me until the splint and the slings go away. Thanks, A. You are strong.

Wow, I refer to Rachel Maddow a lot. I guess that makes me not unlike anyone who refers to Tucker Carlson a lot. Except that Tucker Carlson is a sniveling, scowling toady, and Rachel Maddow is rational and reasoned and smart and maybe even humble. She says things that make sense to me, or that make me think, and have me wanting to take a closer look.

Carlson just says things to incite and shock. Let’s just say he’s playing to a different audience.

The parallels between the Spiro Agnew fiasco and Donald Trump are becoming clearer as I read more of Bag Man, by Rachel Maddow. Echoes of attitudes of impunity, doubling down, attacking institutions, using his elected office to enrich himself, appealing to The Base, convenient and debatable interpretations of the Constitution… Holy cow. I imagine this was some of Maddow’s intent in writing about this chapter in our checkered national history. The dynamics are strikingly similar.

In addition to all this, there is the question of no one being above the law—not even the President or V.P. Makes sense to me. They’re not pure, unblemished lambs, they are not imbued with special traits that render them impervious to the frailties of us mere mortals. They’re as human as the rest of us. It seems a dangerous precedent to say “hands off” because of the office they hold. They were not divinely appointed. Agnew and Nixon—and Trump—are recent proof of this!

There should be no cloak that renders their indiscretions invisible, or immune to prosecution. They abused their power, they abused our trust, they have all lacked honor and a conscience in the effort to cover their tracks and their asses. Why are they any different—or better—than the criminals further down the food chain who end up doing time?

You pay for a “good” enough lawyer, or just one with a creative streak, and I guess your desired outcome is possible.  

After listening to Rachel Maddow’s history lesson on the Winter War between Russia and Finland in 1939-40, it occurred to me that maybe there was a debilitating lack of resolve among the invading Russian troops, since they were being told to invade a sovereign nation that had done nothing to them except to have the bad fortune of sharing a border.

The Finns held their ground until the sheer volume of Russian troops tipped the scales a few months in. They were defending their homeland from an army that was just following orders, who were fighting without a certain animus or “inspiration.” Or any real reason for being there other than Josef Stalin wanting to gobble up more land for Mother Russia (how much more land do they need? They possess the largest landmass on earth!).

The Russians hadn’t been attacked or provoked, so how could the average recruit feel like what they were being told to do was a good idea, somehow morally justifiable? Tough position to be put in, for anyone with a conscience. Yet they were compelled to do their jobs. To be order-following soldiers.

It might make one wonder if a similar dynamic doesn’t exist in the current unprovoked invasion. This might be our only hope—that Russian troops, en masse, awaken to the contrived purpose and the grotesque depravity, then rise up and flip Vlad the bird.

I’ve never been an ambitious person. Maybe for short stretches, but never sustained. It’s always been a tough sell, for some reason. I could blame it on my upbringing, but I’m not looking for excuses.

Ambition gets its fair share of bad press, because it consumes as much as it inspires. One can associate it with people like Edison and Einstein and MLK, or Hitler and Trump and Genghis Khan. It can be blind or focused. Whatever it is, I have not been blessed with it. I’ve often seen it as evidence of a certain selfishness, i.e. one’s pursuits in life are the only things that matter, to the exclusion of everything and everyone else.

Yet, ambitious people achieve things—and sometimes for the benefit of others, not merely for themselves and their own enrichment and glory. I’d like to know what it’s like to be ambitious, to be motivated, to have a goal and achieve it. Maybe that’s happened for me but I’ve never thought of it in such terms.

Anyway, I think I’ve largely missed that boat. And I believe this has been a giant disappointment for the one person I’ve always wanted to please.

I’m having trouble focusing on the significance of a lot of things. We have a situation in Ukraine that seems to be spiraling out of control, but here at home we try to ignore that and just get on with daily life.

There’s a new Masters champion and I’m happy for him, but the hoopla surrounding that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans compared with what else is going on in the world. It’s like we know that Putin is a loose cannon capable of just about any heinous act, including drawing us in and escalating to Armageddon. But we choose to ignore that and take solace instead in the start of a new baseball season and “the roars are back” at the Masters and the Easter bunny is coming and the kitchen needs remodeling and maybe, at last, Covid is receding in the rearview mirror.

Fucking Vladimir Putin. Much of the world recognizes the depravity and wants no part of it. But at the same time, don’t we have to stop and realize the consequences of our apathy and inaction? Vocal support and other shows of solidarity are nice, but basically window dressing.

It is, without a doubt, a sticky situation—no one wants to play into Putin’s hands and cause a widening of hostilities. But the people of Ukraine are crying out, and it seems hardly anyone is really listening.

Sometimes I think the worst possible descriptor of a person is that they are incompetent. Things grow more pathetic when this person brags about being not only competent, but a genius.  

The January 6^th Committee may be unearthing all kinds of dirt on Trump and his cronies, but what are the chances that they’ll be able to hang anything on him? It’s gonna end up as just another in a continuing series of perceived witch hunts, all that effort wasted, because Mitch McConnell and Co. will yet again find ways to delay and discount and render irrelevant and inconsequential the entire body of evidence– the usual and handy “much ado about nothing.” Facts that will be shocking and damning, but will only mean something to those of a particular political stripe, and which are otherwise painted as harmless and a chasing after wind.

It matters little what the majority of Americans feel and think and know. Floor votes and filibusters are all that matter, along with a steady stream of media disinformation that keeps a vocal minority foaming at the mouth.

One might hope that all this will be part of the public record, at least. Available to anyone who wants to read up on this ignominious chapter.

Question everything. This is where we are now. If Rachel Maddow can be believed—and it seems she does her homework—Russian cyber interference is so prevalent and devious and effective that we need to question everything. Every Facebook post, every Tweet, every email that doesn’t seem quite right.

The Republican talking points that have us doing double takes? Quite possibly sitting Senators and Congresspeople are taking their cues from Russian disinformation that’s flooding the internet and having actual effect on opinions and beliefs. Witness the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2016 and 2020 elections, or the more recent mind-blowing account of one Republican official who got up at a meeting and talked about the “fact” that elementary school children are dressing up as cats and dogs and coming to school and defecating in corners because their teacher wouldn’t give them a litter box. This person apparently never gave a thought to checking sources or stopping to think before unloading this pile of bullshit for the whole world to hear.

Whether or not this came from some internet think tank in Russia is unknown, but it’s this sort of drivel that is disseminated regularly and embraced, most often by Republicans who are hell-bent on making Democrats look silly and impotent.

The internet is Russia’s most effective weapon, in a way, and they know how to wield it. There’s a more than even chance that much of the outlandish, sensational proclamation and accusation—and much of the more rational sounding stuff—spewing from the mouths of Republicans is made up, not true, or at least exaggerated. All in the service of painting Democrats, or any enemies of the Kremlin and Putin (and the fossil fuel industry?), in the worst possible light.

Going forward, one might think that we’ll all be more wary of such deceit. Probably not, but couldn’t one dare to hope that if we’re aware that Russia’s intent is to get Americans to hate and distrust one another, we just wouldn’t let that happen?

I know I’m in a bad place, attitude wise, and I’m not getting any younger. Maybe that’s in part what’s behind my piss-poor frame of mind. I’ve been living to other people’s expectations seemingly forever. I’ve led a conflicted life. Never sure of myself, without dreams or goals or the focus and drive to achieve them. But also feeling like the whole dream-following thing is its own brand of folly- self-serving, narcissistic. Selfish in the extreme.

So I’ve lived somewhere in the middle, a sort of existential no man’s land, specializing in inertia.