Daily writing prompt
If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
Some sort of educational facility– medical research or music.
Yup. Scary.
People around the world must be looking at us and wondering, with a skeptical eye and mystified stare. But then it dawns on them. “Oh, right.” They put two and two together and come up with Donald Trump.
I’m not seeing any way that this ends well. Even if people demonstrate and rebel and get through to their Congresspeople, this administration, or regime, is not going to give up power now that they have it. I can’t be the only one thinking this.
The scapegoats are being named. ICE agents are already icing people. Institutions are being gutted, voices of reason and dissent declawed. It can’t be long before the demonstrations and public protests are viewed as something more than mere nuisance, and law enforcement and military personnel will have to make a choice: which side are they going to stand with?
Are they going to “follow orders” or break ranks?
Why the long face…?
A laughing baby, certain SNL skits and Weekend Update, some animal videos, certain comedians, passages in books, jokes, my siblings, my wife, other members of the family, certain situations or turns of phrase that show up in dreams.
Every now and then, I’ll see something online that makes me crack up. The eyes water, the nose runs– it’s a great release. On occasion, I’ll think of something from a long time ago that made me laugh, and it’s like I’m hearing it for the first time.
Rage Inducement
Does anyone have any hair left at this point? There must be handfuls and clumps on floors and furniture across the land.
Our leaders really are just a clown posse without the levity. With very rare exceptions—and I’m thinking even Marco Rubio is in way over his head—most of the nominees and now heads of government that Trump named are outrageously bad. Practically every one of them is an inexperienced, hand-picked talking head. Placeholders and ass kissers, pretty faces and mega-donors who know either enough to be dangerous or next to nothing about the responsibilities they’ve been handed.
Mostly sycophants suitable for carrying out the plan, the blueprint from the great minds who’ve brought us Project 2025, copies of which we had in our hands well before November 5.
Inches, then miles
Occasionally, I check a YouTube channel that goes by danainspired, a fresh, often raw and spirited take on current events, usually focused on topics related to what’s going on in Washington and, by extension, the country and the world. She didn’t hold back in a recent post dedicated to Kristi Noem and her sham, ugly show tour of a prison in El Salvador.
What Dana said toward the end is what we should take to heart. I wish I could remember it exactly, but along with her biting, stinging takedown of Ms. Noem, she warned, without a hint of hyperbole, of something we should all be aware of by now—that it’s not a long trip from poor treatment of trans people and immigrants looking to escape the hell in their own countries and pleading for someone to pay attention to them, to a place not unlike what was going on in Germany and the concentration camps in Europe during WWII.
I took her bottom line to be that we should have zero tolerance for Trump and all his wizards of ignominy trying to tear this country apart. What happened in Germany in the 1930s and ‘40s could happen here, and it looks to be unfolding before our eyes.
Zero tolerance. It’s time for all of us sane people to, as Dana pleads, get in the game.
Sayin’ Stuff
Daily writing prompt
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Hazarding a guess, I’d say a fireman or police officer. The astronomer and meteorologist phase came later. In truth, I don’t think I ever really knew, with any level of resolve, what I wanted to be.
Good Question
Music, love, grace, quantum mechanics, string theory, any language other than the one they’ve been immersed in. That list is long.
In a macro sense, maybe it’s the lack of understanding of how interconnected everything is, how magnificent this planet is, and, at the same time, how impersonal and disinterested it is. The natural forces at work in the world have no regard for us and our needs and wants and lack of attention and care and understanding. We as human beings are always trying to figure things out, trying to make it through the day, trying to domesticate and tailor our surroundings, ignoring the warning signs, or just taking things for granted, while the earth and the forces and systems at work simply… are.
Perhaps most damning of all is, through ignorance or self-serving motivations, the willingness of enough of us to carry on as if our sheer numbers and what we’ve loosed in the way of imbalance and despoiling are having no effect on the planetary systems that keep us alive.
We certainly have filled the earth and seemingly subdued it. But we really haven’t subdued anything. Maybe what many still don’t understand is that we’re paving the way for our own demise. The earth isn’t too big to fail us, and it might be wounded. But it’s resilient enough to still be here, to still be turning long after we’ve sealed our own fate, and this in no small part because we chose not to understand.
Heinous and hateful
There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not reminded of how sad and tragic and ridiculous this all is. Trump is a caricature of malignancy and rage and incompetence. Musk is, hopefully, wondering what he was thinking when he sank all those millions into the campaign—there has to be some sort of upside to all that influence peddling, right?
Maybe Rubio and a few members in Congress are wondering how long they’ll be able to keep up the façade of supporting Trump and this reckless march to the sea, this abandonment of reason in the name of “efficiency” and in search of “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
They’ve depended on a head start and enough Americans keeping their heads in the sand. But have they anticipated the eventual awakening, the realization among the general populous that there never has been a MAGA mandate, and their whole plan is a piece of shit?
A sham. The pipedream of angry misfits and selfish outliers who are the antithesis of patriotic.
Waste, fraud, and abuse? They need look no further than themselves.
Tools
I retired from full-time clergy duties in the Fall of 2021, but by then technology had long found its way into the life of the congregations I served– from basic word processing for bulletins and newsletters, to improved processing and copying capabilities, to microphones and various audio-visual tools, like projectors and drop-down screens, sound systems and televisions, to mass communication tools like email and Zoom and call lists.
Zoom was the tool of choice and necessity during Covid, and a pre-recorded service uploaded to YouTube became a regular feature during those days. Nowadays, more congregations can broadcast their services live, since the cost of equipment to do so, along with the means to upload, is within reach of more than just the larger worshiping communities.
And there’s the utility of digital cameras and smartphones.
Frogs in a Pot
At first, it seemed encouraging that Dems were heading into Republican districts and having town hall meetings with people who might have voted for Trump but are now having second thoughts. But anymore it sounds like it’s just more partisan cheerleading and preaching to the choir, i.e. the AOC-Sanders anti-oligarchy tour.
Big crowds, but apparently mostly Democrats who are agitated and motivated—maybe not as much crossover as first reported.
So, most Republicans and disaffected Democrats are still standing their ground, still okay with Trump and Musk and the rest’s dismantling efforts?
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