Whatever happened to the idyllic idea of living in our houses by the side of the road and being a friend to people? Whatever happened to listening to Walter Cronkite talk about the main story of the day? Ending with “And that’s the way it is.”
Poor Walter would have to talk foe at least an hour to recount everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours. And I daresay he’d have to end with “And that’s the way it appears to be, at least.”
Even the pundits are snowed under. Heather Cox Richardson, for example, admits to wanting to take a day off now and then, but doesn’t dare because there’ll be a huge backlog to sort out the day after. I sympathize. I was just getting used to working through the notion of ICE officers at the TSA offices, when the president assured the nation that we’d won the war in Iran, been given a large present worth “a lot of money,” and that there’d be no “boots on the ground,” when it’s announced that several thousand more United States servicepeople (all of whom, I presume, wear boots) are indeed headed to the Middle East. Mission and purpose undisclosed.
Now, assuming all these initiatives are primarily the products of a single mind, we have to assume that mind is overtaxed, disorganized, mendacious, or delusional. If they’re instead the output of a corporate mind (albeit inspired and encouraged by the leadership of a single mind), then we probably are in a great deal of trouble. The notion that all this chaos and mayhem are intentional is very discomfiting. I find myself exclaiming, “You mean somebody planned this?”
The tune the British army band played at Yorktown seems appropriate – “The World Turned Upside Down.” If any further evidence were wanted, today’s news contained the announcement of a lawsuit filed against the federal government by the pardoned perpetrators of the January sixth attack on the United States Capitol, alleging that their lives and tender dispositions have been upset by the characterization of their actions as anything but peaceful and patriotic. How’s that for chutzpah? – though I suspect the litigants might reject the word. And how’d you like to be their lawyer? Hint: You would. There’ll be lots of mysterious money available for the case.
The news item getting the most ink and attention this past weekend has been of the mass No Kings rallies across the country. I didn’t go; standing around in a crowd of like-minded people sort of figuratively shaking my fist, and then trekking a half-mile or so back to my car just isn’t my thing. It’s Bea’s, though, and she sent me a really cute photo of herself in Swampscott grinning out from under a nice borrowed sign with the legend, “I Have a Dream,” and a cartoon of the president in an orange jump suit and handcuffs being led to a cell with other miscreants already in it. I’m impressed by the time and effort she spent to be there, but can’t help noticing that, once back on her car and in her usual Economics professor fashion, she drove another couple of miles to get some darning yarn and fresh fish.
Which is pretty much the story of where we are. Gasoline and diesel prices are at a noticeably higher premium than they were two weeks ago. The “border czar,” Tom Homan, is making belligerent noises about the continued presence of his troops scouring the streets for the worst of the worst. Yet on Sunday morning, as the bombs fell not just on Iran, but all over the Middle East, little kids emerged from Palm Sunday services in America fashioning miniature crosses out of their new palms. Baseball season won’t be at all affected. The morning coffee group at Capitol Grounds will go on undisturbed. The sports news will remain untinged by the political events of the nation (Oops! I forgot the World Cup, which the USA lobbied hard to get, but which now seem in jeopardy because of new restrictions imposed by the president on visitors from some cup-involved countries. The fact that this is happening is received by almost everyone with a ho-hum is a measure of how accustomed we’ve become to extraordinary events).
So here we are, a couple of weeks into a sort of war without a well-stated purpose and an indefinite goal, led by a pathological liar who aides reveal is “bored” with the details. We’re juggling Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia, again for unstated reasons. The suspicion grows, at least in this eldest oyster’s head, that all the diversions, all the billions of dollars, and all the deaths and maiming are intended to protect just one elderly real estate developer from a fate, apparently to him, worse than death.
