Will Rogers never met this guy

Not sure if it was Machiavelli or Michael Corleone who originated the phrase, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” but it’s been on my mind.

The concept came in handy in – of all places – public school!  When I was working as a high school principal, I needed to have my ear to the ground.  The tone of a campus can shift quickly and you don’t want to be caught flatfooted.  So, while I did not consider any young person at my school an enemy, there were a few who, without a doubt, had agendas that did not coincide with mine. 

School order, for example, did not top their to-do lists.  For those few, a perverse sense of fun rolled around their heads like marbles in a maze.  If pulling a fire alarm would provide the necessary disruption to an exam they hadn’t studied for, well, whoopee!  Let’s do this thing!

Happily, kids talk.  And to my delight, a fair number talked to me.  Maybe it was because they understood that I found it easy to see through their anger and their bluster, their need to prove themselves or to save face.  The kid inside, the human being who sought approval and recognition always shone through.

With their help I could almost always stay ahead of the shenanigans.  Almost.  With a nod or a wink from a ne’er-do-well I’d kept close to me, who might even have been a double-agent in league with the culprits, it was easy enough to find the firecrackers before the commotion, or head off an altercation before it came to blows. 

But these days, we are playing for much greater stakes than an afternoon’s instruction or hi-jinx on the quad.  We have an enemy among us who seems to have achieved the American dream yet threatens to destroy it.  For the American dream is nothing if not open-faced and optimistic.  But this playground bully is of an uncommon breed.

Mean-spirited and selfish; quick-tempered and without insight or empathy, he is out to win whether steam-rolling his way through any ‘conversation,’ or seeking to tear down and destroy any who might venture a dissenting opinion.

Legions of his cohorts have called him out.  Stalwarts in his clan have held their noses at great length, trying to maintain the party line, but even they must come up for air.  And so they do, sometimes singly, sometimes in clusters, and declare that they just can’t hang with him.  He’s too much even for those who have lock-stepped their way through decades of partisan group-think.

People I know and love say they are with him.  It makes me sad.  I can only imagine that they somehow know, in their deepest selves, that the old ways of hatred and distrust, of isolation and division, of knee-jerk retaliation and destruction are failed.  He represents the last gasp, the refusal to let go a distorted and damned state of mind.  They are desperate to feel strong, but a pinprick will explode this buffoon.

And so this enemy is close enough.  Too close.  And despite my history of finding the good, I am hard-pressed to find it there.  I can see only self-serving calculation.

We cannot deny that he’s taught us some things.  He has opened our eyes.  And he has strengthened our resolve to crush him.

I believe he will be routed.  My hope is that we have a landslide.  Maybe not all 50 states.  Maybe not my beloved home state.  But we will relegate him to the realm of nastiness and conspiracy theorists where he ever may thrive. 

Good bye and good riddance DT.  November can’t come soon enough.

This guy

We women know the guy.  Maybe he’s a longtime friend of your dad’s, so you have to make nice even though he smells like booze.  His comments to you are laden with sexual innuendo and just on the edge of vulgar, but for dad’s sake, you bite your tongue and excuse yourself as soon as is respectful – to your dad.

This guy could be your uncle, but his eyes don’t find yours, instead they linger on your breasts or your legs and he asks you to turn around so he ‘can look at you.’   Always sizing you up.  Measuring.

When he arrives for the bar-b-que, or it’s time to go, his hugs are creepy uncomfortable, so you’ve learned to grasp his forearms to keep him and his hands at a distance.

On top of it all, he’s of that generation just before we learned to keep our ignorant biases to ourselves.  His lasciviousness wears no veil.   You make allowances for your grandpa, but this guy…

I saw him on national TV recently and recognized him immediately when his wife held him at bay. The spotlight was on them and he wanted to embrace her, give her a kiss for show, but she took his hands instead,  flexed her arms and pushed ever so slightly, protecting her space without revealing too much.  People were watching after all.  And she was repulsed!

Just like the rest of us.

This guy, Donald Trump, is a swollen caricature with money and power and now throngs of people egging on his stunning display of misogyny.

If it’s a woman who questions his knee-jerk, conflicting statements, he responds with tasteless references to her menstrual cycle revealing inch-deep reasoning and a perverse desire to humiliate.

If a woman exercises her right to abortion,  he says she should be punished!

His latest exhibition of anti-woman sentiment came when he was asked about the consequences of  a woman being  harassed in the workplace:  She should get another job.

But this is different.  Donald Trump is not our dad’s old high school buddy.  He’s not our fading grandpa and he’s not the embarrassment that we tolerate because he’s family.

He’s not harmless and he cannot be ignored.  We cannot excuse him.  But more importantly, we cannot excuse ourselves and simply go wash the bad taste out of our mouths.

A flutter of disapproval is not sufficient.  We need too make a noise like Kazir Khan.

Speak out!  Speak out daily!  Don’t let a flutter of complaints be enough.  It’s not enough that ‘somebody said something’ in response to this guy’s blitzkrieg against women.  Keep posting every day, multiple times a day.

We can sway the election.   Let’s run this guy out of town on a rail.

#CrushTrumpin50states

Monty Python Got It Right

I love a slow news day. 

 Wake up.  Pour the coffee.  Turn on the TV to accompany your preparations for the day. 

And our top stories this morning: 

·         Princess Katherine’s wedding gown on display! 

·         Lindsay Lohan wears $1000 Manolo Blahnik shoes while claiming she cannot afford court-ordered psychological counseling. 

·         Do men do their share of household chores? 

·         And Donald Trump may announce, again, he’s running for president. 

Hooray!  We can exhale.  We can start the day free of new stress. 

Remember Simon & Garfunkel?  “I can gather all the news I need from the weather report.  Hey!  I’ve got nothin’ to do today but smile!” 

Yeah.  No news is most definitely good news.   

All right, you may say there is, in fact, news.  The “heated” debate over raising the debt ceiling, for example.  But this, for me, is not exactly news.  Or maybe it’s news in the same sense that professional wrestling is sport.  The players are in costume.  They’ve rehearsed their roles.  The outcome is decided.  We just watch to boo and hiss on cue.   

The oppressive heat wave dominating so much of the nation is news.  That weather report is nothing to smile about.  Unless like me, you used to live back there with thirty-one straight days of 100+ degrees and the concomitant double-digit humidity.  I try not to rub it in too much with my Okie relatives.  Poor form and all. 

The last flight of space shuttle Atlantis is sad news for the American dream.  But I heard this morning that NASA plans to put an astronaut on the surface of an asteroid by the year 2025.  Not exactly riveting in the moment, but something to look forward to in an abstract way.  

The players’ lockout is resolved for professional football.  Thank God. 

The SF Giants met President Obama to receive his personal congratulations for winning the World Series last fall.  That’s cool.  Tardy, but still cool. 

Best of all, nothing new to worry about today.  Nothing to add to the list of disquiets that we mull over a little bit each day.  Reviewing them.  Taking them through step-by-step, from the beginning.  How did it start?  How will it end? 

No new contingents of suffering in the world.  Only those already categorized and compartmentalized.  No new wars, or oil spills.  Only the wretched, distressing, but normal batch of car wrecks and shootings.  One animal attack, but everyone’s going to be OK. 

If anything’s startling, it’s what we take as routine, even expected, though not quite acceptable. 

So it’s make the bed.  Brush the teeth.  Get the husband off to work.  Read email.  Plan dinner.  Buy groceries.  Write.  Putter.  It’s all pretty darn good.  In the big picture. 

I’ll just thank God in Heaven for the incredible life I’m privileged to live, feeling especially free from the weight of a big news day.  Only the same old straws today.  Not a single new one. 

Coming up:  Four new ways to barbeque chicken!  I can deal with that.  I love barbequed chicken.  Matt, Natalie, Al, and Ann all wearing aprons.  Cute.  I miss Meredith, but network life goes on. 

Wait.  Uh oh.  Breaking news?  Oh no.  An explosion in Oslo.  Awful.  Absolutely awful.  Terrorists?  No.  One man!  One truly screwed up man.  Young people on a remote island.  Horrific. 

Damn.  I thought the world might maintain its status quo just this one day.  Maybe not an equilibrium of all good things, or even equally bad things, but a balance of sorts.  No new dreadfulness just this once. 

Alas.  

Our globe is populated by human beings after all.  Flawed.  Unenlightened.  Messed up.  Selfish.  Greedy. 

But wait.  What’s this?  The Good News Network!? 

Our Top Stories today:

·         Gates Gives $42 Million to Safe Sanitation Projects

·         Young Baseball Fan's Act of Generosity Caught on TV

·         North and South Korea Hold Constructive Talks

·         Logging Plummets in Mexico Reserve for the Monarch Butterfly

·         Terrified Kitten Rescued From Irish Freeway

·         Danish Mystery Donor Leaves $200,000 in Red Cross Bin

·         Healthy Snow Leopard Population Found in Afghanistan

·         From Down and Out to Happiness: It’s a Wonderful Life (If you let it be)

·         "Liter of Light" Brings Sun into Dim Shanties Using Only Plastic Bottles

·         Dalai Lama Offers A Roadmap to Inner Peace

·         Former Child Refugee Becomes Hero to Hundreds of Afghan Orphans

·         Teen Athlete Gives Entire $40K Scholarship Prize to Runners-up

·         U.S. Returns Recovered Artifacts Taken From Iraq  

And the best news of all:

·         Research: People Who Look on the Bright Side Age Best

No Worries, You Go Ahead

Reverend Howard Camping, the independent Christian radio preacher who predicted the end of the world for last Saturday, might be looking only at the upper part of the glass, the empty part. That would explain his wish for the world to come to an end.

Sometimes the world as we know it overwhelms us with pessimism. It appears to be flush with liars and killers and thieves. Oh my. Yearning for a guilt-free escape may be appealing. But escapism reflects a narrow view. Maybe relief comes by widening one’s field of vision.

Like most of us, I gave a cursory thought to the Reverend. I did not divest myself of all my earthly stuff. I like my stuff, but not too much. It is just stuff after all. Nevertheless, I kept it, dusted it, mopped it, fluffed and folded it. Just like always.

I did make a mental list of all the things I wouldn’t miss about life on earth if, in an unlikely turn of events, I found myself drifting upward into the sunlight and clouds and the open arms of God. It’s a long list of nasty stuff, probably not dissimilar from your list, if we were to compare.

War, for example. No regrets in leaving war behind. Partisan politics. No pangs of conscience at its vestige shrinking on the curvature of the earth. Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump. No lamentations.

Then there’s the small stuff, the mundane. Yet even though it’s tedious and redundant, I just want to go on doing it. Go on doing the laundry and cleaning the litter box. Buying groceries, cooking them, eating them, and buying some more. Washing dishes only to dirty them up again.

I made another list of the things I would sorely miss. It’s even longer: Water, shimmering water, fountains, birdbaths and the birds on their edges. Fresh paint and generosity. Smiles, laughter, and new mown grass. But maybe we’ll get that in heaven.

Not to imply that my husband would be left behind, but I don’t want to go before him. I’d miss him so much I’d have to haunt him. I’d like to think I’d be a benevolent haunt, but who knows? Those of us caught between here and the nether regions sometimes behave badly. I could be impish. How could I forgo the opportunity to tweak those tiny details that hold him out of perfection?

Our son has taught me more than perhaps anyone else on the planet has. I hope I do die before he does, of course. But I reserve the right to hang around in the ether and nudge him (that’s a nice way of saying nag and pester him) into finding a smart and beautiful young woman who will take up the process where he and I leave off.

Someone said if there really were a rapture cats and dogs won’t be going. Well that’s just stupid. Of course cats and dogs will go. The definition of heaven includes cats and dogs. Look it up.

The Reverend said he’s “flabbergasted” his doomsday prophecy did not come to pass. He’s recalculated now and I must say I am glad to have another five months to reflect.

When I worked in the schools I told the kids I knew the meaning of life. It’s easy I would say: Make the world a better place. That’s why we’re here. As soon as we formulate the question and recognize the answer, duty binds us to get after the task. Get ‘er done!

It sounds daunting, but we just need to adopt the Okie version of completing a large project --- break it into small pieces and work on it “slow by slow.”

That’s where faith comes into play. We go about our daily business, doing our granular part with a gentle spirit, knowing somehow we’re fulfilling our obligations and contributing to the good of all.

Then, if on October 21st, or whenever that giant roulette wheel in the sky lands on our number, the harps begin to play, and our eyes are drawn upward, we can defy gravity without regrets.

If there’s anything left undone, it won’t be that we should have been kinder or more generous. We won’t be yearning for that one last chance to say, “No worries, you go ahead.”