One of life’s great mysteries: why boxing and MMA and the rest are called sport.

A primal proving grounds for attention-starved combatants? An outlet for anger issues, legalized mayhem and income stream? An indulgent escape for those who watch with hopes of a bloodbath or someone rendered unconscious, or worse? Sounds more like it.

It’s hard to know if it’ll ever happen, but I’m still holding out for an awakening.

I have no choice. It seems it might be our only hope—that Republicans arise one morning, look at their newsfeeds or network of choice and suddenly realize they can’t be accomplices anymore. They can’t ride coattails and compromise values. They can no longer prop up, humor, or feed an insatiable ego.

They miraculously grow a spine and finally tell Donald Trump to fuck off.

It’s always been all we’ve ever needed. We could have ended this nightmare a long time ago. Maybe not nip it in the bud but at least minimize the damage. As it is, there’s a monumental amount of fence mending in order, and if we don’t get started soon, it’ll be too late. Trust will be an ongoing issue.

Thanks, Donald. And Stephen. And Kevin and Russell, and all the MAGA voters and others who thought Trump might just be what we needed.

Beware the idiot who says he alone can fix things.

Are we there yet? Can we reach consensus on the fact that our President is a nut job, an unserious egomaniac who gets his jollies playing while many of the people he supposedly serves are eking out an existence and just getting by?

Isn’t it clear now? He’s running for his life, he’s always angry, probably ill, way more stubborn than an ox, and now engaged in a tit-for-tat with Canada, our long-time trading partner and friend. Little Donnie has his boxers in a bunch over Canada’s totally predictable and understandable retaliation for 50% tariffs that are currently set to go into effect in the new year.

Good for Canada! Punch the bully in the mouth and just let the renaming of Lake Ontario roll right off your back. “Lake America” will be a short-lived phenomenon, if it comes to pass, and it’ll be our latest embarrassment. We’ll be the ones who have to live with the childishness and try to ignore it, until a new administration arrives and removes all the golden calves and the spiteful map renderings.

Jeez, Donald.

And he’s not close to being done yet. Every day we move a bit closer to irrelevance. We isolate ourselves a little more. It’s hard to watch.

Recently, there was a headline in a well-known publication that asked, “Is RFK, Jr. winning or losing the battle against vaccines?” I guess I’m not clear on the phrasing, or why the question was asked in the first place.

As the query bounced around in my brain, a couple questions popped up in response. First, beyond the mind-numbing reality of his current status as head of HHS, why is RFK, Jr. part of any conversation pertaining to the benefits or dangers of vaccines– or any medical question whatsoever? And second, why is there a war on vaccines at all? Why speak of it in such a way?

I think I understand that any vaccine is going to be unsafe or ill-advised for a certain small percentage of the population, but that, on the balance and according to a majority of those who actually know about such things, they are safe and efficacious.

The fact that this is being spoken of in terms of war is unsettling, to say the least. It’s as if the whole enterprise is the brainchild of cold-hearted pharmaceutical companies who only care about the bottom line, or there is this unfounded fear among MAGA adherents and others that vaccines are the devil, a symbol of wokeness, somehow. It’s irrational to think this way, yet enough people are making noise over it that we have to waste time talking about it.  

I’ve never understood vaccine mandates to be the intentionally oppressive means of forcing preventative measures on someone. I’ve always understood them as being the reasonable recommendations of those who used to be trusted as having done their due diligence, done their homework, engaged in the trial processes and as a result stand behind the safety and effectiveness of drugs that keep us safe from horrendous, often life-threatening diseases.

In the end, Bobby, Jr., please do the right thing and at least leave the choice of whether or not our kids are vaccinated to parents who are doing their homework and thinking clearly. And let research surrounding these miracles of medicine continue.

Otherwise, just resign and enjoy your days foraging for roadkill.

It’s a bit frightening to think that the Supreme Court of the United States is sympathetic to Donald Trump’s, i.e The Heritage Foundation’s nefarious intentions. It’s a shame his lawyers aren’t as inept as the rest of the half-wits around him.

These jurisprudential whiz kids apparently are presenting a lucid enough argument regarding mail-in balloting that the justices have rewarded Trump with yet another victory.

I assume that the brunt of the argument lies in attempting to curtail voter fraud, which is the cliched and longstanding excuse for all the attempts at keeping Democrats from voting. This is the latest, and just in time to perhaps affect the outcome of upcoming elections in November.

My stomach turns once again, because the argument of fraud has been disproven over and over again. The SC has to know this, but they’ll defend their decision based on the arguments presented, which apparently have been good enough to warrant this closer look and yet another gut-wrenching win for the creepy circus.

Or maybe the court is simply in Trump’s back pocket. Even, somehow, afraid of him?

Every day, it feels like we move a bit closer to disaster of one sort or another.

No one is minding the store.

Most in positions of responsibility and authority are operating out of an abundance of ineptitude, incapable of tending to reality, hired because of their loyalty to a big-mouthed egomaniac and not necessarily because they know anything about their jobs.

We’re constantly dealing with the batshit craziness of it all, aghast at the excuse making, the lying, the administration-wide incompetence, and the blatant, unchecked self-interest.

Most days, the country appears to be running on autopilot, on muscle memory. There are lots of moving parts, after all. But it’s starting to feel like, shortly, various chickens will be coming home to roost—the greed, the short-sightedness, the mismanaged economy, the testosterone-fueled distractions some call military operations, the mystifying refusal to acknowledge that our environment is sick. The racism. The paranoia. It’s all gonna come crashing down.

Maybe that’s why Donald is pushing so hard for his ballroom. He really feels like he needs to take up residence in what’s being built underneath it. Sounds like we should let him. He’ll need a place to hide after the blue wave.

Then maybe nature will take its course, and our fearless leader will follow in the footsteps of one of his heroes, sans Eva. Maybe Natalie will have the good sense not to follow him in there.