Atticus
Atticus's JournalHow long before we start having "John Q" confrontations? How long before some father---
---or mother or child or spouse---DEMANDS a respirator for their loved one at the point of a gun?
The sheer utter desperation is just beginning and desperate people are capable of just about any excess you can imagine. The passion that could save us could also destroy us.
How do people live without music?
I have just spent a couple of hours with some very special---no, AMAZING---people: some of their names are Joplin and Cocker and Mitchell and Mercury and Young and---
At times I soared; at times I sobbed. From the wistful pain of Joni's "Both Sides Now" to feeling the hair stand up on the back of my neck with Janis's "Ball and Chain", the music pried my heart open after weeks of closing it to the hate and strife and sadness of our world.
Beauty still lives. Love is real and at least as tangible as pain.
Pick your genre, plug in those earbuds and open your mind and your heart. Listening can heal.
And, to those who may judge this a foolish or flippant post---i am smiling as I type---"pax vobiscum".
Trump is our "rough beast".
I know this has been quoted often, but there is just nothing more appropriate than Yeats:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Trump was NOT "caught flat-footed" by this virus!
If a tornado sweeps in upon you "out of nowhere" with no broadcast warning and no reason to expect a storm, you were "caught flat-footed".
If tornado warnings are broadcast well ahead of the twister and repeated often on your local media and your sister and several neighbors call to be sure you heard the warnings and you simply shut the front door and practice putting in your back yard while otherwise TOTALLY IGNORING THE THREAT and the tornado kills you or a family member, you were NOT "caught flat-footed"! The deaths are ON YOU!
I am ashamed that so many of my fellow citizens need this explained to them. China told the CDC about the Corona virus on JANUARY 3RD! The CDC promptly told Azar who acknowledged the serious threat and promptly notified Defense.
"Flat-footed" my ass!
On a lighter note, it's been over 50 years since I wore a pony tail, but I'm about to revisit
my youth. I'll not be visiting my barber for at least months. And, I just may try tie-dying a tee or two.
Anyone remember how much Listermint to add to the bong water?
I guess I am still just a barbarian at heart.
I confess that one of my greatest sources of stress and aggravation is the internal struggle to not wish harm---ranging from CV infection to a 2 x 4 upside the head---to the spineless Republican apologists who appear on my TV.
Ali Velshi just interviewed Rep. Buddy Carter (R, Georgia), a pharmacist, and asked how he felt about Trump wrongly telling us that "Everyone who meets the guidelines for testing can be tested". Good ol' boy Buddy began by disagreeing that Trump had uttered an untruth and then launched into an irrelevant meander into how much better our medical preparedness is here in the US thanks to Trump.
My "wrong side of the tracks" roots still wants a piece of that smarmy SOB.
But, however temporarily satisfying that might be, I know that to so indulge would be to surrender what makes us different---and superior---to the Deplorables.
The internal battle continues.
The undisclosed costs of Trump's total failure to do his job cannot really be measured by numbers.
How does one measure the cost to a grandparent of not being able to hug a grandchild? How about if they don't live long enough to hold a newborn grandchild?
How many high school kids have been robbed of their prom? Their trip to the state basketball tournament? Their graduation in front of family and friends?
What is the cost of being unable to be married in a church or synagogue crowded with two proud families?
How do you compensate someone for having to bury a wife or father or child without sitting Shiva or having a wake? How do we measure the pain that riding to the cemetery alone adds to grief?
Then there's simply the toll that prolonged isolation---the awful "aloneness"---takes on our well-being. No friendly beer at the neighborhood pub. No cup of Joe with the regulars at your favorite coffee shop. No church. No school programs. No Fourth of July picnics orThanksgiving dinners or Christmas Eves with the family.
Those are just a few of the irreplaceable pieces of our lives that Donald Trump's incompetence and narcissism have robbed from us. I, for one, will never forgive him.
When discussing what Trump may or may not do to stay in power, could we just scrape one
popular scoop of pure BS off the table?
Let us, please, not waste time debating whether there is ANYTHING that is so "extreme", "over the top" or "lunatic fringe" that Trump would not at least attempt it. The Constitution; statutes; long-established customs and traditions; notions of morality---religious and secular------none of these have ever stopped Trump from doing whatever he deemed necessary to get what he wanted.
And, now, he has the added motivation that, if he loses power, he will likely face indictment and prosecution for innumerable crmes.
So, could we please dispense with the "But, he has no authority!" line of "reasoning"? Let's move past the false premise inherent in that.
"And, somewhere in the darkness, the gambler he broke even---"
Kenny Rogers has died.
To the thing in the Oval Office: it is NOT your damn money!
In the face of a cascading US health disaster, you hold back the PPE's and ventilators which are in federal warehouses and which We the People paid for!
In the face of the doctors and nurses who are being told to "wear bandanas" instead of masks begging you to help, you tell us you're "not a shipping clerk"!
Now is not the time to "nickel and dime" the American people who are struggling to survive this pandemic. Now is the time to give everything available and then search for more.
Several billionaires are donating millions to help state and local governments deal with this crisis. Did we miss the announcement about YOUR contrbution?
If you will not step down, step aside and let someone who gives a shit do what is necessary to combat this plague!
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