Was it a war? Is it over? Who can say?

Truth is one of the many things that Trump and his minions have damaged, with the latest being their claim that the "war" with Iran ended before the statute-mandated 60 days without getting legislative approval passed. Or maybe that 60-day requirement is just suspended due to a cease fire... though it's a cease fire with plenty of firing and an on-going and legally dubious blockade of Iranian ports by the "good guys." Or there will be some other excuse. 

Laws are made up of words and we know that words are malleable and sometimes language is used to obscure rather than illuminate. But most laws did undergo some scrutiny and argument over precise language and precise intent. 

But we have some courts, particularly the Supreme Court, that is quite willing to twist and fold and mutilate common sense. We have an administration in Washington that depends upon educated people across the country grappling with meaning and investigating endless possible meanings and implications.

Yesterday's SCOTUS decision that basically argued that states discriminate against white people when they attempt to provide representation for their non-white citizens in drawing legislative boundaries. The boiled down to taking care that politicians looking to keep groups unlikely to support them from having a fair chance. 

If you happen to be Black in Louisiana, for instance, you have received the clear message that your white neighbors are OK to draw boundaries that heavily favor one race over yours. The Supreme Court claimed that the Voting Rights Act succeeded and we no longer need such laws. That's the same basic logic as the court cited in ending Affirmative Action. 

In the next few elections, we are likely to see entire states creating rules that lead to House members, at least, from just one political party. So, a clever partisan can almost certainly create all-Texas House delegations as well as all-Democrat delegations from California. I assume someone is already plotting to draw Colorado's districts to leave Republicans with one of the eight seats. We have so much sparsely populated rural land that creating a clean sweep would be impossible. But we can come close.

And here's the thing: we really need to go to an extreme like eliminating any minority representation from most states before we can take a chance on ending partisan gerrymandering and instituting non-partisan boards to create fair districts, perhaps growing from a federal law. 

It's akin to how we will only deal with a budget deficit that has surpassed the entire gross national product for the first time since WWII when the crisis causes the entire financial system to crash. It's the same as knowing that Social Security and Medicare will soon have to be constricted due to sheer demographics, and no one in Congress is willing to suggest a plan.

Perhaps we can increase the number of House seats to 1,000 or more, thus shrinking the size of each legislative district and reducing the influence of national funding and the billionaire class. Perhaps that would give citizens some hope that they might be heard by their congressional representative.

Right now, if you happen to be a Democrat in, say Florida, you are looking at a new map that favors (though does not guarantee) a 24-4 Republican advantage despite at least 45 percent of the state voting for Harris in 2024. 

Even my eyes are glazing over right now, and I'm writing this post. I would not be surprised by a reader abandoning this rant after a paragraph or two (and this being a post closer to a personal diary entry). 

I read today that a recent survey reveals that over 50 percent of adults actively try to change the channel, scroll past, or skip to the next page of the paper... just to avoid any mention of Trump. 

That intentional ignorance may be good for the mental health of each individual but it spells the end of democracy as we know it. 

If it's any comfort, it's a virtual lock that any group that enjoys near-total power will eventually begin internal fighting. Most murders are bad guys killing bad guys, with lots of innocent bystanders, of course.

But people can just stay home and safe. Or things can deteriorate to the point where change of any kind is preferable to the suffering and injustice and pain of continuing to knucke under to the Billionaires.

An educational and inspirational stop along I-70

We drove to Iowa City last week to help granddaughter Anna celebrate a big scholarship based on her freshman year work on the Daily Iowan, to to mention catching up with family and friends. It's a bit over 800 miles and not what anyone can call "scenic." 

Plus, it's just a long slog of about 12 hours with hundreds of semi's competing for the space on the interstates. But one reason for driving was my quirky desire to stop in the very center of Kansas on I-70 and visit the Eisenhower Presidential museum in Abilene. That is the town Dwight David Eisenhower, hero of WWII and inaugurated as President in 1952, grew up in. 

His term as president began when I was one and one-half years old, so the timeline of much of the museum was a snapshot, of sorts, of America in my lifetime.

He was a Republican when political parties did not remotely resemble what we have now. In fact, both parties recruited him to run for president and why he chose to run as a Republican is not clear. 

What was clear is that he was a modest, smart, and dedicated leader who was an internationalist and who somehow managed to appeal to most people around him. Here is one quote that sticks with me that I found while we enjoyed the well-organized museum: “Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”

I didn't cry but I wasn't far from it. 

Imagine government officials who embraced that sort of humility and honor and respect for others. 

I know the 1950s are often ridiculed by a world that overly values sophistication and cynicism and revising all past truths, and I know prosperity was hardly equal in that decade after the war ended. In fact, the 1950s may be what the MAGA cult may be imagining when they seek to make American great again. 

Leaders won't ever be perfect. Government will never be perfect. The world will fall short, over and over. But there was a time when there were people in government who were looked to the future, who tried to, even in small doses, make the country and the world a little better each day.

President Eisenhower was one of those leaders. He represented a "middle way," and that was both his style and his politics. 

Our passions push us away from the middle way, but I see the value in steady progress toward a better country. 

If you are ever driving through the middle of the middle of America, stopping for few hours in Abilene would be well worth your time. 

In the end, the comfort is that the world somehows endures...

It's great to be a winner, even if we don't know what the measurement system was. America so desparately wants to be a winner, so naively assumes that we will always win, that our current murderous expedition to Iran is causing cognitive dissonance. 

We have our mad king claiming victory every other day, even as tensions remain high. The goal posts shift with the mad king's mood and from afar it appears that everything about the Middle East is worse than it was two months ago.

Prices are up and only going higher. The strait is still closed and dangerous. Lebanon continues to be bombed by an Israeli military that must have endless weapons. Every country on the planet rightly distrusts American leadership. 

The rich have found new ways to leverage even more profit from the chaos. And the vast majority of the world's citizens are forced to sit and observe the most powerful nation of the past 100 years burn reputation and treasure and ethics.

Trump had succeeded in pushing the Epstein files scandal off the news (not that tough in a goldfish-memory society, but it's something, I guess), and then his imported bride stepped out and bizarrely brought the whole mess back to the front page. The chaos presidency in action.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks!

Since no one prompted her to complain or make a statement, that certainly makes most people wonder if there is something there, after all. Of course she knew Epstein and many of this fellow perverts and reprobates. The whole point is that Epstein cast a wide net, knew everyone, gathered secrets, and offered a range of favors and services. Melania married into the obscenely wealthy class.

The rich are different from you and me, as F. Scott Fitzgerald reminded us a century ago. We have managed to create a society where one percent of the population possesses more in wealth than the bottom 90 percent. And the rich have manipulated the tax code to make that happen.

As is the way of humanity, extremely rich people order everyone else around and find ways to make us feel patriotic about it, even as we are all materially and psychically poorer. The U.S. military, only recently recovered from the debacle of Vietnam, is one entity that will need a generation to regain its professionalism and pride. 

Our proud Christian leaders have tanked organized religion... and recoving will take another generation. 

The media has no idea how to deal with a relentlessly irrational and angry and evil governmental leadership class.

And now Claude has created an AI so powerful that they can't actually let anyone use it. The company's own warning is that the AI can basically bring modern society across the planet to a halt. 

So much winning.

Are we the frogs in the slowing boiling pot?

No one knows what to make of Trump at this point, but it appears that most folks are just going about their lives, trying to find some logic in the world, and even looking for hope for the future.

The media has no idea how to handle all this, continuing to cling to accepted norms and traditions while refusing to confront what is right in front of us all: a crazed leader and a sycophantic government.

That video from a few months ago reminding the military that they are required to refuse illegal orders, such as orders to commit warcrimes. 

Our deranged king appears to have threatened Iran, a nation of over 90 million, with nuclear annihilation if they don't do... well, SOMETHING, by tonight. He never explicity says, well, much of anything, but when he treatens to destroy an entire civilization UNLESS... 

I mean, that's what he said. I guess the media just reports and it's up to the American Public to decide. 

Are there no Republican leaders who can urge our demented leader to back off a bit? Our system basically shuts out the opposition from putting a stop to a madman and a power-hungry collection of fanatics, leaving only the Republians with any power at all.

And the House and Senate have gone home... to restock bomb shelters or take one final trip to Disney World before it all crashes down? 

Could be a good week to rewatch Dr. Strangelove, and we're all Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb toward the target. Yippee!

Anticipation isn't as powerful a force as it once was

Baseball is back and today is Opening Day for the Rockies... yet, I am just not feeling the traditional surge of hope and anticipation of great weather and the looming end of the semester. 

Trump ruins everything.

Of course, it doesn't help that the Rox have "enjoyed" three consecutive 100-loss seasons and don't appear to have injected some magical talent into the roster. 

And the weather has been teasingly great for most of winter, to the point where now most people around Colorado are fearful about the upcoming fire season. 

The end of the semester is always welcome, but I have a very fast 4-week online course that begins the Monday after the semester ends... so there's really not much of a break. I know. I didn't need to say yes when the course was offered.

Honestly, I hate to turn down such work. I am not panicky about this, but I wonder if the next time I say no to a class or to judging a contest or whatever that I may not be asked again... and I like that extra income and the intellectual challenge. There might be nothing to worry about, but why chance it?

The costs of owning a home continue to ding us... and the plumber claimed we need from $1,000 to $1,600 in cleaning, upgrades, etc., to make certain our A/C doesn't freeze up this summer and cost us even more. That summer school course will cover that cost.

And we are driving to Iowa City on April 13 to see Anna and help celebrate her scholarship at a quick ceremony at the journalism school... see brother Mike and assorted IC friends. Possible stop in Abilene, Kansas on the way back to visit the Eisenhower Presidental Library/Museum.

I suppose that trip will take care of the rest of my pay, but I'll at least end up "even."

Fingers crossed that we don't encounter some freak April blizzard.

Holy Week thoughts on ignoring immorality

I know the larger events of the world don't directly have effects on me. Kathleen and I sat on the patio a couple days ago, sipping wine and marveling at temps in the high 70s... in March! Our investments dropped quite a bit over the past few weeks, but we just will let them ride, so to speak, and they are likely to recover once the "war of choice" ends. We can't get the local ABC station due to a dispute over fees between the local owners and Comcast, forcing us to go to Hulu to see new shows. The horror!

But it's Holy Week and a good time to contemplete the psychic damage that our King inflicts, even as we watch him descend into madness and dementia. 

The U.S. is murdering people, plain and simple. No clear planning. No legal discussions. No sense of morality. We blow people up in small boats routinely, vaguely claiming they are drug smugglers. 

We have murdered thousands of Iranians, from national leaders to innocent children, because???

We wink at Russia committing daily war crimes in Ukraine as their drones and missiles kill civilians and seem to have no strategic goal other than to terrorize. But by all means, enjoy rising profits from oil sales. 

We are, on some level, guilty of supporting a murderous regime, and no rationalization can absolve us.

We are murderers.

Thank heavens we have Good Friday coming so we can fully confess our sins, while condemning those historical authorities who murdered Christ. 

They, of course, are us, at least symbolicly. 

Most alarming is that we can all see the immorality and massive evil right in front of us. The king goes on TV and proudly proclaims his derangement. We all know - don't we? - that something has to change, and that something truly horrible is on its way. 

After all, when things get bad the only option is to bounce back from the lowest point. Things need to fall apart to even get many Americans to notice. We have not gotten to that point yet, so there's more pain and horrific behavior and outright ugliness to come.

Rich people are so rich now that traditional morality no longer applies to them. Economic pain for most people has no effect on the billionaires. Talk about the system being rigged!

Happy Easter!

Go, you golden Hawkeyes!

When you're an Iowa Hawkeyes fan, it's always best to temper your expectations. Iowa fans may dream of national championships but unless we are back in the Dan Gable era of wrestling, Iowa is not going to regularly compete at the highest level (and wrestling has dropped a bit lately). And "compete" is not quite "win."

Even when the women's basketball team featured a once-in-a-generation talent like Caitlin Clark, the best we could muster (twice) was national runner-up. It's a big country, after all, and Iowa is a small percentage with fewer resources than many areas.

That's not to say that the Hawks can't make national news by knocking off a traditional powerhouse in football, say. It's just unlikely that Iowa will be qualifying for the playoffs. Not enough NIL money but mostly not enough great players. 

In fact, Iowa fans regularly marvel that they get to enjoy the talents of any great athletes, reasoning that those blessed few top-tier players have plenty of options beyond Iowa City and cold winters and a small community. 

Bottom line: we savor our teams' victories when they come, but don't have any illusions that the Black & Gold will be hoisting a national championship trophy.

And yet...

To everyone's surprise, the men's basketball team has reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 1999 and the final year of Tom Davis as coach. He was let go by an impatient fan base and athletic department, tired of years of being runners-up in the Big Ten and rarely going beyond the first round of the NCAA tournament. 

I will admit that I was one of those who groused about Dr. Tom for several years, longing for some magician to come in and lead the Hawks to glory. I soon learned that my wishing for some instant savior was silly and doomed. In fact, I heard a commentator last night mention the Curse of Dr. Tom and how it was only lifted when Iowa edged Nebraska, 77-71. It didn't take long for me to start pining for consistently strong teams.

Then came this season. New coach and new players beyond one redshirt freshman whose father was part of that 1999 team. There's irony for you... or maybe just a coincidence. 

The team will be big underdogs Saturday evening against another Big Ten team, Illinois, but who knows? It's March Madness and weird stuff can happen. Why not Iowa this time?

Ha! Ha! Ha!

My heart will be filled with hope but my head is quite prepared for the air to wheeze out of the balloon.

A classic Iowa fan rumor is that the new coach will immediately depart for greener pastures, perhaps being snapped up by North Carolina or Kansas, two perpetual powerhouses. 

To be an Iowa fan is to always assume we are not worthy. Perhaps that keeps us grounded, and maybe it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. 

But, win or lose, I will return next fall for Iowa football and basketball and join a large chunk of the state in dreaming of elusive glory. 

We are a stubborn lot.