Did you know that the poem on the Statue of Liberty refers only to Europeans? And apparently only Europeans who won’t be a drag on the system, who are ready to hit the ground running.

I didn’t know that. We can learn something new every day.

In the aftermath of the latest senseless loss of life in El Paso and Dayton, it is difficult to feel anything but anger. The endless commentary, the incessant coverage, the focus on what must be done and won’t be done, the preying on peoples’ fears, the lingering feeling that there is nothing routine, nothing innocent about a fucking trip to Walmart. Then there’s the denial from the Trump puppeteers who are so good at spinning the issue as a video game and mental health problem- and not their stonewalling and kowtowing to the gun lobby, along with the enabling attitudes and caustic commentary seeping from the President of the United States.

Other countries play video games more pervasively per capita than we do. Other countries deal with mental illness in their populations. Yet no one is in the same hemisphere when it comes to the frequency of these events as we endure them here. 

The former girlfriend of the Dayton shooter rather smugly and somewhat defensively said that he got the short end of the stick when it came to the attention he needed for his depression or mental illness, seeming to dismiss the glaring reality of his monstrous behavior as it stands.

I have no doubt that people slip through the cracks of our mental healthcare system, but there is no excuse for obtaining a weapon of war and killing an unsuspecting population with it. As cries for help go, this doesn’t help much.

Sometimes it’s a curse to be so connected, because it feels like verbal bombardment and sensory overload. We’re assaulted on a daily basis by myriad voices with differing motivations, and sometimes it becomes too much.

It seems to be the consensus among folks not associated with Fox News that Trump is a racist, but I don’t feel qualified to affix such a label. I know what I see and hear from him, and it’s mostly ugliness. It moves beyond simply “telling it like it is.” If it’s all in service of projecting a persona, of intentionally pissing people off, if it’s all part of a re-election strategy, then it means he has no problem acting and sounding like a person who shows and feels discrimination against other races.

Maybe it’s just what it looks like- a person with an ego the size of Jupiter who feels no shame, who feels unassailable. Maybe the racism is so ingrained, there’s no way he can see it.

We slap labels on people at the drop of a hat anymore and call “foul!” Sometimes it’s really difficult to tell who has a legitimate gripe, because there seems to be such a pervasive desire to play the victim. And once the media get ahold of a story, it’s wall-to-wall coverage and a feeling that now it’s just piling on.

And are plaintiffs motivated merely by wanting justice, to teach someone a lesson, or save someone from future harm? Or is it really about the financial settlement? It’s no wonder lawyers get such a bad rap sometimes.

There’s no reason to accept the Donald Trump presidency as normal. We can’t care how Fox and friends spin things. There’s something seriously off about the whole lot of them. I feel no obligation whatsoever to respect him or anyone he appoints, or anyone who supports him. Though I’m sure some of them are good people. 

I’m as guilty as anyone of never really listening to the opposing viewpoint, with regard to all the craziness going on in Washington. I guess I don’t feel like I’ll learn anything, because it will just be fear-mongering and defense of a president who doesn’t deserve defending. Not to mention an assault on my ears. It would be just another day of ass-holery, and I’ve had enough of those.

The people at Fox News and all the MAGA/KAG folks have nothing to say to me. But I have a plea to them: please step into the 21st century.

Donald Trump is just plain awful. Redeemable, but awful, at the present moment. And everyone around him are opportunists barking at the moon.

Robert Mueller today.

And tomorrow? Confirmation that he didn’t say anything we haven’t already heard. Trump will emerge unscathed, defiant, and once again victorious (in his mind). And the nightmare will continue.

Do you really have a “bound conscience?” Or is it more your gut ruling your heart, just plain stubbornness and fear of difference? Are you hiding behind some shaky biblical interpretation? Because that’s a skinny tree without much foliage.

The bible is old. In some important ways, an outdated source. It can’t help us much when it comes to understanding human sexuality and gender identity.

If all it can do is offer up prohibitions against things the authors didn’t fully understand, or aren’t even mentioned, then how authoritative can it be?

I’m still trying to find the right words. As I sat in class recently and listened to a scholar expound on the beauty and virtues of Lutheran theology, pretty much all I could think was, “Why is this important again?” I was hoping for a whiz-bang application, just one revelation or insight that would spur me on with renewed vigor and purpose. But all that happened was that I sat in on a 4-day summary of Up and Down theology, something on which I pretty much already have a handle. 

Here’s where I’m at: all of this only matters if one is searching for God or open to God even existing. Call it a yearning, a restlessness, call it the work of the Spirit. Call it superstition. I don’t know.

Anymore there is an aspect of all of this that seems, at minimum, anachronistic. And not just out of vogue, but an actual sham, one long deception.

Yet it’s so entrenched, so prevalent. It started with twelve (men) and look at it now! How can nearly a third of all people on earth be barking up the wrong tree? There has to be something to this, right?

Is faith of any sort only important until we reach a certain socio-economic status, or level of comfort? Does a need for God emerge only when we feel like nothing else is working for us? Do we then abandon faith when it seems we’re making it on our own, like crutches until we heal? Does this help explain why Christianity is growing in regions beset by poverty and political unrest, and dying in places like here in the US, the land of McMansions and Beemers? Maybe such superficiality shouldn’t tell us anything.

I still can’t find the words. I just need to wrestle with this every now and then. All I know is that there was a nagging feeling that, as important as it all sounded, it signified hardly anything. Luther, Melancthon and the rest lived 500 years ago, for crying out loud. And we still hang on their every word?

Does it all still translate, still speak to our day and time? Is our doctrine as timeless as scripture seems to be, or should we be paying closer attention to expiration dates?

So the current catchword for Republicans is socialism or its variants, kept in queue and ready to roll out at a moment’s notice, in order to elicit fear and foaming at the mouth among The Base. The gullible, mindless, crazed lemmings.

Gotta hand it to the elephant party- by and large they stick to their script, have the president’s back, and almost to a person claim the Democrats are just sore losers who want to take our freedoms away.

It’s remarkable behavior, for all the wrong reasons.

So the US women’s soccer team won the World Cup again. They are a good team, but it’s tiring to hear all the buzz about them being cocky and unapologetic. I forget how one writer put it- unapologetic greatness, or something like that.

So this is where we are now. You can act any way you want as long as you’re good. You’ve earned the rights to your boorish behavior. I’m disappointed in the women. I expected something more from them. You can still be intense and not sell your soul to the bravado bullshit. Celebrate, but not the soo predictable in-your-face kind of crap. Guess the celebration can’t be boring, either. Gotta be in someone’s face with your greatness.  Gotta have the swagger. Gotta entertain.

I don’t care how hard it is or what it took to get to that level. I hope they get their asses kicked next time. Then someone else can take the mantle and show the world how to really revel in one’s victory. How to be a true champion.

We really are a country full of immature adolescents. It’s not enough to be victorious. You also, apparently, need to know how to celebrate like idiots. And not the ‘04 Red Sox kind of idiots.

They should get their equal pay now. That’s just fair. They’re the whole package- from preparation, to performance on the pitch, to rubbing peoples’ noses in how good they are. True media darlings, all gold. Kudos, I guess.

So Trump wants tanks and flyovers during his July 4 event. I wonder if that was the big takeway from his recent conversations with Vlad and Kim.

Maybe it’s always been a dream of his.

Is he drunk with his power, or is he somehow messing with his haters? Either way, it raises a red flag. It’s bold- and supremely wasteful- to muster military resources for one’s own pleasure.

But don’t worry, Mr. President. We’ll all be proud as peacocks. Because nothing says the 4th of July like a show of military might in our nation’s capitol.

I’m sure the rest of the world will be impressed, too. As soon as they stop laughing, and shaking their heads.