Sickening

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Deception is rampant, but there’s nothing we can do about it, except wait for Trump to buy the farm.

The wheels of injustice are turning, the cover-up is in full gear. When you can divert the efforts of a thousand FBI agents just so they can scour Epstein documents for any sign of Trump’s name, we should know that the jig is up, that the powers that be can manipulate justice to their liking, to whatever’s gonna work best for them.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have to suffer through this ugly charade, this administration that doesn’t know the first thing about real governance but likes where it is and isn’t in a hurry to leave.

Infuriating beyond reason.

Trying

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Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
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Eat healthy most of the time, and take the meds that our doctor has prescribed. I am very conscious of avoiding sitting for very long, though I still sit too much. I avoid the noise of political commentary whenever possible, other than Colbert and Kimmel and a couple others. I read, I count as exercise the days I work with our son at his landscaping business. Other days I try to get to the Y. I play the piano on occasion, and recently dusted off the guitar a friend gave me years ago. These are pleasant diversions. And a good visit with the grandkids usually tires me out but lifts my spirits.

Such A Rat

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Watching the reaction to Colbert’s cancellation, I can’t help thinking that Donald Trump has given everyone reason or permission to speak more coarsely, to throw decorum out the window, to stoop to his low level of discourse and verbiage.

Go f*** yourself! is the new mantra for the time being, voiced by Colbert, along with Jon Stewart and a choir and the whole audience at The Daily Show. It’s directed at Trump in hopes of… what? That it will somehow have an effect on him, that he will suddenly be rattled? Trump is the master of guttural, harsh, unoriginal language. He lives for evoking reactions to his own idiocy.

I can’t see how this is anything but cathartic to us who despise him, yet only amusing to him.

Fairly Local

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Daily writing prompt
What are your future travel plans?
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Near term, a family get-together in upstate NY, a trip to southern New England in September, and not much after that. We haven’t been up to Maine for a while. Maybe we’ll look into that.

Nothing exotic or out of the ordinary, though a long weekend in Iceland sounds interesting.

Room for Improvement

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Daily writing prompt
What would you change about modern society?
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To borrow a phrase from Bush 41, I’d like to see kinder, gentler nations. We are slaves to ideologies and the bottom line, slaves to some ideal, preferred lifestyle; we pay lip service to nurturing strong communities but live as though it’s all about ‘me.’

Let’s take a holiday from social media, reconstruct some semblance of an attention span, and acknowledge that accelerated climate change is happening in real time.

And we elect surprisingly horrible leaders. Though, in the case of the U.S., not surprising at all. How could people not know what they were gonna get? Many need a heart transplant, and a better handle on discernment. Or maybe they need to take a longer, deeper look at the Bible, which they say means so much to them.

White Noise

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Trump has always had boundary issues. It’s followed him to the presidency, the latest example being the need to dictate a return to the original team names for the D.C. NFL team and the Cleveland baseball team.

Give it a rest, Donald. Stop being such a predictable idiot when it comes to sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Or is this part of the Project 2025 mantra as well—just trample on respect and sensitivity and bludgeon your way through history?

Extra Work

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Daily writing prompt
What do you listen to while you work?
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Work mostly happens outdoors anymore, when I’m working with my son or in our yard. I have never had a desire to listen to music or anything else while engaged in these things, especially in the summer heat– I don’t need a set of headphones on, or anything in my ears while I work. The same goes for exercising at the Y– I just exercise, and have never found a need for any additional stimulation or distraction. I just tune into the rhythms of the day– birds, traffic, and so on.

Glorifying the Ugliness

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What is the purpose of battle reenactments– beyond the pageantry and spectacle and chance for civilians to get their fix of playing soldier? Is it so we remember the costs and try not to do it again?

How’s that been working out for us, as a nation and a species?

Madness

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Maybe Colbert will just start tearing people new ones. What has he got to lose? I didn’t think he’d be the first one to get the ax, though conditions were ripe for him to be made an example, all the ingredients were in place.

Trump might be elated at the moment, but he has to realize that Colbert and Kimmel and the rest aren’t likely to go away. They’re just gonna find more receptive landing spots, new perches, from which they will show no mercy. The media landscape is so diverse that Trump will find himself playing a constant game of whack-a-mole with the army of detractors arrayed against him. The only tool in his stupid arsenal, besides litigation, would be to threaten prison time in Alligator Alcatraz, or just pull the plug on the internet. I suppose that’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

How did we get here? How did we get to a place where previously normal governance—even with all its vaguaries and insufficiencies and share of shady, incompetent characters—has given way to nothing more than a daily, bad soap opera featuring an unhealthy, empty-souled, power-hungry megalomaniac who doesn’t give a shit about America, who lies like most of us breathe, who’s always trying to keep his head above water and fighting fires of his own setting?

To keep paying lip service to this 79-year-old child is a grave disservice to children everywhere. Even the MAGA faithful deserve better.

Yikes

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Daily writing prompt
What’s your go-to comfort food?
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Assuming comfort food is code for food that’s very palatable but not necessarily good for me, I have to go with a big plate and seconds of spaghetti and meatballs, or pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, or sausage gravy and biscuits with a couple of fried eggs, topped off with a decent sized piece of apple or pumpkin pie and a chunk of dark chocolate.