Social media was abuzz last night amid speculation concerning the true intentions of the now-famous fly that rested atop the vice president’s head for over two minutes during the vice-presidential debate.
Rumors swirled in certain Republican circles this morning that the fly was sent by Biden’s people to spy on the trump team’s campaign plans. “People are saying,” said one unidentified source with intimate knowledge of White House proceedings, “the fly was fitted with AI technology that enabled it to scan the vice-president’s thoughts.” This belief was reportedly based on the idea that the mind of the vice president, unencumbered by thoughts of his own, might provide a perfect conduit to the president’s thought processes. Others scoffed at the notion that the president actually has thoughts, pointing to his preference for knee-jerk reactions. Still others postulated that the fly was sent by RBG as a final statement concerning the president’s pick to replace her on the Supreme Court, while a handful of interviewees, those whose pronouncements generally hew more closely to fact-based observations, were of the opinion the fly was merely fulfilling its biological imperative, as flies do, to identify and investigate the source of the malevolent odors it had detected.
The insect, clearly pleased at its newfound celebrity status, was circumspect when interviewed by journalist Alexandria Petri for the Washington Post, responding to questions, as had the vice-president during much of the debate, with little more than “Bzzzzz,” and “Bzzzzzzz.” Seemingly “relaxed and pensive, “Petri reported the fly “didn’t look a day over a day,” marveling that it had elected to devote so much of its relatively short life-span perched, un-enviously, atop Pence’s pate.
Perhaps it was the pull of popularity that drew the fly
Whatever its real intentions were, the fly wasn’t telling, offering nothing more than Bzzzzzz, Bzzzzz, and Bzzzzzzz!
On social media, the fly became the biggest star of what came across as “a normal debate,” as CNN’s Jake Tapper put it.
Anyone who endured the vice-presidential debate tonight deserves financial compensation for the emotional trauma inflicted upon them by the fact-impervious Mike Pence, a man who, by virtue of his colossal and shameful mendacity, made a complete mockery of his professed Christian faith. I would normally never make judgments on a person’s religious devotion, but, frankly, Pence’s sanctimonious and excessively smarmy performance did not reflect the behavior of a pious and reverent man.
Short on facts with which to defend the trump record, Pence resorted to the standard playbook of this administration—deflection, fabrication, the use of false equivalencies, obfuscation—favored by authoritarian regimes throughout modern history.
If Pence really believes what he is trying to sell us, I feel sorry for him. If he is, as I suspect, merely spinning his lies to serve his political ambitions, he is making clear he doesn’t give a damn about you, me, or the country we all share and love.
For heaven’s sake, the man’s delivery was so putrid, he even drew flies!
Late word has it that sheds light on the fly’s motives:
Flies notwithstanding, the addition of plexiglass barriers was wise but they should have also added a rule stating the candidates had to actually answer the questions posed to them. The American people would be better served with having their questions answered directly rather than having resort to making determinations based on what was omitted.
And, I must add as a postscript, If I hear one more fluffed-up and disingenuous Republican saying he is speaking on behalf of “the American people,” there aren’t enough expletives in the English language to accurately reflect my level of condemnation or disgust!!!!!!!!!
To sum up the evening, perhaps Bill the Cat said it best:
I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude about the current state of things in our country but, when I hear our alleged president declare “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life,” and then follow it with “We have developed, under the trump administration, some really great drugs & knowledge,” (drugs, some of which, it must be noted, are not available for anyone but his wretchedness), it makes my blood boil!
And then, one of the first things his unacceptableness did next was to announce he wants no more negotiating to take place on a stimulus package until “after I win” the election, which means, if the sane-minded among us prevail in November, there will be no new negotiations until after his despicableness is replaced in January of next year.
Think of all the human misery—new infections, lost businesses, home evictions, mental health issues, lost dignity and self-respect—not to mention the continued environmental degradation that will go unaddressed between now and then! It falls on all of us to be mindful of these things because his monstrousness surely will not be, nor will his myopically self-absorbed followers.
That there is no more immediate and effective remedy available to us when our leader slips the bonds of reason so completely as to place our entire enterprise in grave danger such as we now find ourselves is the stuff of nightmares and a bitter and potent wake-up call shattering, once and for all, the illusion of comfort and security we’ve been lulled into believing is our birthright as citizens of this once-great republic.
If his illegitimate-ness “loses” the election, and trump’s senate cronies lose their grip on that body, a Biden administration will owe it to all of us who have been forced to endure the depravities of these past almost four years to prosecute those responsible for the criminal behavior of the trump era to the fullest extent allowable under the law. No special deals should be contemplated; no presidential pardons should be allowed; no “extenuating” circumstances should be considered; no stones should remain unturned; nada; zip; zilch!
We’ve all been taught that actions have consequences. The public must be able to see that the actions of those who’ve enabled this horror show to continue for so long will have consequences too!
The Man Behind the Mask, By Dutch artist Seigfried Woldhek
donald trump is a florid example of everything one ought not to want one’s children to grow up to become: To pin one’s hopes on a person such as this man is to court disaster, because everything he touches, sooner or later, turns to shite. All things in life come with a price: To say one prefers the devil one knows means, in essence, one has chosen the devil. What could possibly go wrong?
The story of donald trump is a morality tale writ large: his excesses will eventually bring about his ruin; we are seeing this happen right now, as his myriad dubious entanglements, finally grown metastatic, are closing in on him on all sides, even, as fate would have it, biologically.
There’s a great lesson to be learned here, but unfortunately, it is being lost on his admirers. They would be wise to peer deep into their hearts for guidance instead of remaining mesmerized, like fish, by the gaudily shiny object dangling before them, unmindful of the baleful hook disguised within.
Everyone, from the ancient Greeks to our parents, has warned us to beware of people like donald trump, but, as was aptly noted by a famed exploiter of human weaknesses from an earlier time, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
The willfulness of an undisciplined child was on full display this afternoon in the visage of a president out parading around his hospital grounds in a black Suburban for the sake of a photo op when he should have been in bed conserving his energy to better fight the virus assaulting his body. Apparently, his minimization of the virus now extends to his personal experience in having fallen ill to it. This behavior is just one more reminder that the country needs a leader who is capable of assuming adult responsibilities and not one who surrenders to his impulses on the slightest whim.
This act was irresponsible on multiple levels: It spoke to a flagrant and continuing disregard for the health and safety of the Secret Service officers in his protection detail; it undoubtedly took place against medical advice, thus complicating his chances for a complete and speedy recovery; it further jeopardized his ability to remain sufficiently fit to govern; it added to the uncertainty gripping the nation concerning the true state of his condition and hence, his ability to govern, while adding to already extant doubts about the mechanics of a transfer of power, should that become necessary in the event he were to become totally incapacitated.
In short, it is the desperate act of a man who sees his chances of pulling off the greatest con job of his vainglorious career literally slipping through his fingers with each minute his campaign hopes remain sidelined by—irony of ironies— a “hoax” of a virus that should have, by his telling, “miraculously” disappeared months ago.
A more balanced individual might have been reasonably expected to demonstrate a greater appreciation at this point for the deadly import of the virus, after having a direct and personal encounter with it. But this man, a total stranger to reason, common sense and good judgment and apparently incapable of learning from his experiences, is, as we have seen, not someone for whom the term “balanced” is a fitting descriptor.
That the true significance of such “presidential” displays continues to elude his MAGA crowd is a source of unending perplexity to this observer.
A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, Facebook presented me with a photo someone took of me six years ago, along with the comments people made when it was posted. One of those comments was made by Wesley Robertson, a dear person and good friend from my Strawberry days who left us (way too soon) a few years back.
Reading Wesley’s words filled me with nostalgia and made me yearn to be back in those old times and, especially, to be able to somehow experience his endearing “Wesleyness” once again, if only for a moment.
While in Sonora for a few days last month, Michelle and I had a day to spend in the mountains. We decided to drive up to Camp Mather and see if we could get permission to walk around camp a bit and take some photos. After obtaining permission from someone in authority, we wandered around the camp for the better part of two hours.
The Music Meadow looked much like it used to, absent the poles that formerly supported the Strawberry stage. Both the meadow and the area around the lake were well maintained, but the rest of the camp was devoid of the meticulous grooming Mitch Third and his crew used to perform in the weeks preceding each festival. One can hope this was only on account of the camp’s having been closed this season due to the pandemic.
While on our stroll through Camp Mather, we re-traced our all too familiar route from our festival days, yet much of it—between fire damage, warming climate-enabled insect damage and the logging that followed—appeared not that familiar at all any more.
Past Rock in the Road, we walked around our old Camp Remember haunts, then headed out toward the upper meadow, after which we swung right and began angling over to where the Pigout folks used to set up camp.
As we surveyed the area, trying to ascertain its location—many trees were missing, as was true in a good deal of the place—I pictured the old Pigout headquarters, with Wesley, Mark, Chip, Kim, Mike, Jay, Mary, Ron, Melissa, Nick, Brock, Carol, Vaughan and the rest of the gang holding court as they gathered around the Rhino Bar, welcoming us in for a drink, a smoke, and most of all, great company.
But, as my life experiences repeatedly inform me, you can’t go home, whether it’s back to that special place you used to know, or, more lately, to life in general!
WALKING THROUGH CAMP MATHER the other day, I felt a growing awareness that I would never be attending another festival there. The camp, like everything else in the world, had changed so much that going back, like turning back the clock, would be impossible. Some things just can’t be undone!
At one point, I turned to Michelle and said “I think this is the last time I will be visiting this place.”
The times in which we are living are times of momentous change. Between a warming climate, the fires, floods and superstorms, the pandemic and the passage of time itself, we are on the cusp of something that’s been building just a ways up around the bend for a while now, something that we can’t yet quite fix in our viewfinders but something that we know for certain won’t be anything like what we’ve been accustomed to in our lives up ‘til now.
Whatever we do and however we proceed from here is a deeply personal decision whose impact will be collectively felt by all. But remember, pining for what used to be is of no more use than bemoaning what might have been, and no more an option than unseeing something. The time for that, if ever it was, has passed.
Or, in festival-speak, once that beer’s been opened, you have to either drink it or throw it away!
And time, at least for now, runs only forward.
“Fate leads the willing,” said the Roman philosopher/statesman Seneca, “while the unwilling get dragged.” Will you choose to go kicking and screaming, or will you proceed by reading the currents and negotiating the flow in an informed manner, with an eye toward making the best of a challenging situation? The choice, as noted above, is one we each must decide for ourselves.
Whatever you decide, one huge inflection point is coming up very soon! Please make your voices heard and exercise your right to vote!
As a concerned voter who can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have written to an elected representative in the 55 years since I became old enough to vote, I implore you in the strongest terms possible to honor the precedent your majority leader set in the last year of the Obama administration by refusing to take up a vote to confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court this close to a presidential election.
As an elected representative, your foremost concern should be to protect the Constitution. While the action being urged by the president and the majority leader to quickly confirm whomever the president nominates might not violate written law, it certainly violates the spirit of the Constitution—rushing to confirm a nominee at this time may not be illegal, but it is unethical, and, as such, is not the behavior expected of those to whom the public has placed their trust.
In addition, as public figures, your behavior is constantly on display. The behavior of public figures such as you should thereby be guided by a desire to serve as a positive role model to guide the behavior of others in making decisions and taking actions that are grounded in fairness, honor and decency. Should you choose to confirm the president’s nominee, this close to an election, your actions would be setting an example falling woefully short of that objective.
No honorable justifications exist in support of confirming a nominee to the Court, at this time and under the present circumstances, that could possibly ameliorate the utter hypocrisy inherent in such an act, nor would it position you favorably in your desire to maintain a Republican majority in the Senate. In addition, should you choose to ignore precedent, overlook hypocrisy and violate all the rules of fair play and decent comportment in your rush to take advantage of this unforeseen twist of fate you envision playing to your advantage, the short-term gains you hope to accrue will, in all likelihood, given the law of reciprocity, cost you dearly in the long run.
What you do between now and the election will test your integrity like no other decision you may ever make in your political careers. Please choose wisely and deny this president’s bid to confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court for the remainder of his current term in office.
The passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg came as a shock to many, myself included. In her passing, the world has lost a splendid human being, a person whose indomitable spirit far outshone her diminutive size. She was many things to many people; wife, mother, mentor, teacher and someone whose ability to maintain friendships bridging ideological divides wider than the Grand Canyon could serve as an example to us all.
She didn’t want to leave us, that was clear. She knew her passing would throw the country into turmoil at a time when there was already far too much turmoil and unrest. She drew on her strength of spirit, her selfless sense of duty and her tireless and fierce determination to hold on beyond the election, to hopefully see a new change of guard.
And she almost succeeded. For that, we owe her our undying gratitude.
But life moves on, and we must move on with it. The battle lines are forming; a great struggle lies ahead. We owe it to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memory to stay abreast of developments, to remain informed, to voice our opposition to the inevitable attempts by the Republicans to rush through a replacement to the Supreme Court before the current administration’s term runs out.
The passing of RBG, tragic as it is, should serve as a warning to those who remain undecided concerning their choice for president in the upcoming election. Had the voters whose disdain for Hilary Clinton led them to stay at home, or cast their votes for candidates with no real chance of winning, instead chosen to look beyond their own personal animosities, seen the real stakes of the last presidential election, and voted for her anyway, the makeup of the current Supreme Court would look far different than it does today.
I’m not one normally given to indulging in what-if-isms, but in this case the facts are inescapable; if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, her nominations to the Supreme Court would have been people more attuned to the thirst for justice and equality, fairness, and inclusion that has remained unquenched in this country for far too long under the guidance of the ideologically-blinded Republican Party.
Had Clinton won that election, the country would also have elected a leader who would not have ignored science; would not have denied global warming; would not have downplayed covid-19; would not have decimated our economy; would not have conspired to undo the Affordable Care Act; would not have fanned the fires of racial unrest; would not have sought to sow seeds of doubt about the integrity of our elections, our Courts, and of government itself; would not have made the USA the international pariah we are fast becoming. And we would have elected a leader who would not have sought to nullify Roe vs Wade.
For anyone who, like me, finds the actions of the current administration unacceptable, the choice this November is clear. To those who still remain undecided, I implore you to reflect deeply on the current state of affairs—not the one portrayed on the Fox network that’s maintained largely through smoke and mirrors—but the one that’s based on verifiably factual information.
Armed with a fact-based orientation, if something sounds too good to be true, there’s a good chance it isn’t.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was adept at discerning fact from fiction and her amazingly selfless service to our country is a testament to the power of truth over darkness. We would all do well to emulate her principled approach in our daily lives.
What’s needed today more than ever is a healthy sense of detachment. Not the kind that grants permission to “tune out” or seek distraction to the point of no longer being aware of the creeping threat to our democracy being posed by trumpism, but the type conditioned by perspective—the realization that, no matter how frightening or unsettling the news is these days, it isn’t the end of the world; we are not about to plunge into the abyss! Things, as they say, could be worse.
I think often of that long-ago day when, at eleven years of age, I sat atop the wall behind my parents’ house contemplating, to the best of an eleven-year-old’s ability, my place in the world. It was the first day of summer vacation, and my whole life lay before me like an open book, a story not yet written, full of endless possibility. My happiness was palpable; I was loved, my needs were taken care of, and my imagination felt no limits. At that moment, life seemed like it did the first time I heard the Beatles, the first time I tasted fresh-ground coffee, the first time I felt true love.
It was the kind of feeling one wishes one could experience over and over again, were only providence inclined to permit such unending joy.
And here I now find myself, in the second half of my eighth decade, contemplating once again my position in the world.
It feels odd to go from having your whole life ahead of you, with the perception of plenty of time to see and do the things you dream of, to the realization that, at this point in my life, much of that time is now largely behind me.
Thoughts of making new plans, launching new projects, are now overshadowed by the growing awareness of a significantly shortened shelf-life. This is not to infer that, being ever the optimist, such an observation should be allowed to discourage or otherwise dampen thoughts about the future. But my thinking these days is nonetheless informed through the realization that the odds are better than even at least some of the projects I envision finishing might not ever get completed.
But that’s alright. It’s part and parcel of the lot of those who’ve managed for whatever reason to escape an early demise. To borrow, uncharacteristically and with more than a modicum of discomfort, words uttered by my least favorite person in the world, our feckless president, “It is what it is.”
Certain advantages are bestowed to those who’ve joined the ranks in which I’ve now become a member, but in order to take full advantage of them one must possess a healthy sense of detachment.
A lot has happened since that eleven-year-old boy mused about the opportunities that once laid before him. The century of my birth has long since passed the torch, and a new millennium has taken its first baby-steps. For one to say those first steps have been faltering would be a gross understatement!
Not long after the last peal sounded from the bells that rang ushering in the new millennia, America experienced a tragedy unparalleled in its history, an event shocking in its daring and consequential in its import. In the aftermath of 911, the world was changed forever,
And now, with an epidemic threatening to eclipse that of the Great Pandemic of 1918, made unimaginably worse through the ineptitude of a fatally narcissistic president, the world is changing again! Where we will land amidst all this turmoil, if and when the virus ever passes, is tamed by science, or becomes “normalized” through herd immunity (translation: via eliminating the low-hanging fruit—the elderly, the immuno-compromised, the dark-skinned—people the president would almost certainly refer to as “losers”), is anyone’s guess.
But post-Covid America will not be like it was prior to the epidemic any more than the country was after 911. Or what resemblance I bear today to that eleven-year-old boy those many years ago.
In making adjustments to an ever-changing set of circumstances, it’s all a matter of perspective. And nothing aids one’s perspective better than a healthy sense of detachment.
The president alleges without evidence that there will be voter fraud with mail-in ballots in the upcoming election, yet he continues to maintain there was no Russian interference in our last election despite ample evidence of its occurrence. But this is not surprising coming from a man for whom reality is viewed as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a condition in need of accommodation.
The president’s anchorage in a mythical reality is an incredible phenomenon to witness that is only eclipsed by the willingness of his followers to eagerly play along, so far as it suits their needs, which up to now has been most of the time. Some, although little, solace may be found in an observation by the British comedian John Cleese, who said, “When I was young, I thought the world was basically sane with little patches of insanity lying here and there; now I know it’s the opposite—the world is mad, with areas of reasonable intelligence scattered about.”
So, it seems, we’re all living in an insane asylum whose only walls are the ones the reasonably intelligent among us erect to protect ourselves from the asylum’s inmates. Who the inmates are and who they aren’t is largely a matter of perspective but boils down generally to which version of reality they are grounded in—the one people used to traditionally agree was the only one, the common collective reality, from which all deviations were thought to be the realm of mania, and the one in which Kellyanne Conway’s famously termed “alternative facts” shares equal footing: To put it in technical terms, the former version represents consensus reality while the latter one is totally nuts! For the reasonably intelligent, no passport exists that allows entry into the latter realm, save the complete abandonment of the senses.
That very condition—the complete abandonment of the senses—helps to explain why certain Republican congressional leaders continue to support this president. What else could explain their behavior? For these men and women, hewing to the party line these days requires a willful refusal to acknowledge the facts surrounding the issues as well as an utter disregard for the consequences of their words and acts. It should go without saying that these actions do not describe the behavior of reasonably intelligent people!
The only recourse for the reasonably intelligent in the face of such societal mania is to not only refuse to participate in such craziness but also to voice objection, to speak out, and to do so loudly and clearly, adding our voices to the growing chorus of those who refuse to submit themselves to the writhing tentacles of pathology seeking to invade our minds and overcome our spirits.
And the ultimate act of defiance available to us is to vote, and to do so carefully, not just in whose names we mark on our ballots, but also in the manner in which we do so. Become aware of the pitfalls the asylum’s inmates exploit to invalidate ballots. If you haven’t already done so, make sure to register before the deadline, take care you sign your ballots legibly (your signature will be checked to see that it matches the one on file) and, if you vote by mail or via absentee ballot (which are the same, despite what the president would have you believe) send your ballot back extra early to ensure it gets there in time to be counted.
And don’t procrastinate; the asylum’s inmates are counting on your doing so. Disappoint them. Vote with resolution! Make your vote an act of defiance and a rejection of the sinister ambitions and unhinged meanders of the present administration, a clear repudiation the asylum’s inmate will not be able to credibly counter.
Vote this time like your life depends on it, because, especially now with the administration’s embrace of “herd immunity” as the solution to the Covid “problem,” it may well come to that!
To say that this November’s election will be the most consequential election in decades is a tremendous understatement. The very survival of our democracy is likely at stake! In order to save it, everyone’s voice needs to be heard this November and your vote is the means to make sure the message comes through clearly and unambiguously. A resounding defeat for the party currently in power will be a clear mandate for change the president and his acolytes will be unable to ignore. It is the only reasonably intelligent path toward truly making America Great Again.
sonora2sonoma 