Sometimes the good news is that not everyone died

Two negative thoughts I woke up with, based on recent (and ongoing) events.

1. A disastrous flash flood caused by a combination of unimaginable amounts of rain in a short period over the Hill Country in Texas plus the inertia facilitated by climate change deniers (i.e. the Republican Party) combined to kill over 100, including dozens of little girls. There's not much to be done about "one off" events like the torrential rain, but there will be many weeks and months of investigations about whether cutting lots of weather service jobs disrupted the normal communications channels that helped get the word out to authorities that flooding was likely. 

But the true negative thought is that because most of the dead were suburban white kids from families with money... and that the camps have been so important to so many well-educated rich women (their testimonies are everywhere right now)... well, I am thinking that if they were kids from the inner city bused to a camp for a week the disaster might quickly be put in the past. 

It's the same thought I have about a year or so from now, when Medicare cuts really kick in, and rural white people suddenly see their local hospital have to close. Oh, NOW they see the problem with a government that doesn't research or plan or even take the time to read a bill. 

2. We might think that our Fearless Leader might knock off for a month of well-deserved vacation, perhaps visiting his many golf courses, rather than leap in with more tariff threats. And not threats against Russia (perhaps he will be starting a golf club near St. Petersburg), but against Japan and South Korea, among our closest allies. 

So the stock market trembles, and that is what tRump loves... to be the cause of any effect. Just watch: in a week or two he will hint that those restored tariff threats are put off again, and the Pavlovian market will soar. 

More to the point: this is what we have to look forward to for the next three years plus. An endless torrent of tRump creating the coverage that reassures him that he is alive and powerful.  

And America just continues to scroll and click and wallow in ignorance.

We fought a war to rid ourselves of tyranny

Independence Day doesn't have quite the effect this year that I would hope for. There will still be grilling and corn and fireworks and hokey patriotic songs (many of which are actually quite sad, like "Born in the USA" or silly, like "Firework," by Katy Perry). 

Our unrestricted ruler will sign a giant bill that may negatively affect the nation beyond his death ("from your lips to God's ears), while boasting and offering special deals on Trump perfumes. 

I read a commentator's answer to why Republican legislators would vote for so many ill-thought policies that not only will make their own voters poorer and more left behind but also blow up the national debt by over ten percent in one bill. So many bemoaned various parts of the bill that Trump, for one, has certainly not read, yet knelt before their Golden Calf and voted "aye."

The theory was that most Republicans so want to "own the libs" that their judgment is clouded and their lust for blood and some imaginary vengeance won the day. Interestingly, a large percentage of Democratic voters are college educated, with professional jobs, investments in the market, stable families, and solid insurance. 

Most Americans covered by Medicaid, likely to take the biggest hit in the next couple years, are people living in Red states or in rural areas of Blue states. Good luck to them as they find their already disappointing lives just little bit worse over the next three or more years. 

But over a third of Americans responded to a poll by saying they knew nothing about the Big Ugly Bill, roughly the percentage of eligible voters who could not be bothered to cast a ballot in the last presidential election. 

Americans love the myth of independence, of the self-made man, of Shane standing up to the bad guys and walking away in solitude. Americans also love the idea that someone will always ride to the rescue, will always provide medical care, and will always offer them a "new deal."

To keep my spirits up, I have been imagining a Democratic takeover of Congress in 2026, followed by Trump getting frustrated and angry at all the new roadblocks to his random pronouncements... and then his resigning as president in 2027, elevating Vance to the gig and (maybe) giving him a boost. I know. That scenario doesn't seem like a great thing overall, but it would at least take Trump out of the equation.

Now THAT would make me happy to be an American. 

Screw the powerless and poor - they will still vote for us

The new reality of American life is that our population, as a whole, cannot comprehend any of the machinations of politics or even governmental policy unless people are directly affected. 

The Trump bill to funnel money to the already wealthy and make life just a little more difficult for the middle class and poor is a good example of this. The fact that the changes will make life a bit harder for many Trump voters apparently is not enough to change their basic opinions.

They hate trans people, or at least would rather not be reminded of them. They are OK with a certain number of hungry, uninsured children, or, again, would rather not be reminded of them. They are OK with peaceful residents of their towns to be arrested on the street by government storm troopers in masks and spirited away to, well, anywhere ICE wants to send them. 

They are hopelessly confused (tough to blame them here) about the effects that will ripple through the country when birthright citizenship becomes a state-by-state decision in 30 days. 

Donald Trump has perfume to sell us while he bullies and threatens any person or nation that defies his bizarre pronouncements. 

The Supreme Court has opted out of any attempts to provide balance in our "three equal branches" of government, allowing the executive branch nearly unlimited power.

Rational Americans are now left to see what very bad results come from the budget bill, should it ever pass, wondering if the appalling Republican Party will be soundly defeated in the midterms, which are forever away. 

Here's a guess: they won't. Americans are overwhelmed and uninformed and uneducated. 

I see that Republicans in a recent poll come in at 92 percent saying they are proud to be Americans and of America. Democrats and Independents are barely above 50 percent in the same survey. Among young people it's down to 44 percent saying they are proud of America.

I honestly could not say I am proud of the country right now, though I certainly wish I could vouch for our status and policies and general principles. 

The America is grew up with might have always had a bit of mythology about it, but we are not the same country. We are changed and I know change is inevitable. 

But this is what lots of people voted for. 

I predict Americans will throw the current bums out in 2026, but it won't be enough to right the ship, so to speak. 

Our best hope is to ride things out and see if we can piece things back together in 2029. 

'Because you gotta have faith...'

I heard the end of a panel discussion on the topic of why young people are not having more babies in America. We are currently having about 1.6 babies per woman and the "replacement number" is 2.1, so that doesn't look good, particularly if we continue to measure almost everything in terms of growth.

There are lots of possible reasons for the low birth rate, it appears, but many young Americans apparently are doing rational calculations on having enough money put aside so their children can attend private school or enough money for a house, or delaying having children to move higher in their career or to simply do more traveling. 

Bottom line: people are putting off having children and getting married, and the state of the world likely has something to do with it all.

But all I could think about was Kathleen and I, about 23 years old, off on our own in England with Uncle Sam and some fellow Air Force folks. No money to speak of. No college degrees. I was a drop out with no discernable prospects. And we decided to have a baby... without much in-depth conversation about it all.

Looking back, we simply took the leap, the clearest act of faith I have ever experienced. We trusted each other and trusted the Fates. We loved each other and, I guess, just trusted in our willingness to work and raise a family and have no real financial foundation. 

That foundation would come later, along with jobs and places to live, and more family. In many ways, I suppose, ours was a story as old as time. How many humans have had the luxury of a clear plan with all the resources needed to make that plan work out? 

We went off to England as newlyweds and came back with a five-month-old and a VW. That was about it. Our own little miracle story.

I'm sure our parents were worried and anxious and skeptical as to how it would all work out. Now I'm a grandparent and honestly would argue against our own grandchildren leaping into life as we did. It would seem foolish or silly or even dangerous. 

Maybe I should just not worry so much about the world and about the young ones. We made it and we knew and had almost nothing. 

It might have been a far different story, but here we are.

Stranger than fiction and the Senate

Sometimes life is nuttier than any short story or TV comedy... and this week we find ourselves with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee conducting hearings on Joe Biden's state of mind, or something, while president. The feeble justification is that he might not have been "all there." 

The committee is co-chaired by 91-year-old Chuck Grassley, from the great state of Iowa. Far be it from me to be ageist, but that guy has at least one foot in the grave and seems to rarely be aware of where he is and what he is saying. So we have one old codger investigating another old codger and neither of them should be allowed anywhere near important decisions.

Another leader in some stage of dementia is Donald Trump, who today called for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election. This refusal to let things go and to accept reality is a symptom of dementia but no one... and I am including the New York Times and CBS... seems willing to simply state this plain fact: the Emperor wears no clothes.

While Iran was being bombed incessantly, Trump droned on about two new flagpoles he had installed on the White House grounds. There are live wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and he appears to not have any sort of understanding of either.

I suppose we just have to wait for the next two weeks to pass... Trump is fixated on two weeks as the time needed to work out "a deal." Again, the demented come to rely on simply repeating whatever information lies at top of their minds. 

Our expertise in everything from foreign intelligence to military leadership has been fired in the service of Elon Musk collecting data on everyone while high on various drugs. American just sighs and carries on. 

Demonstrations have basically dropped off in Los Angeles but Trump just sent 2,000 more National Guardsmen to... um, mill around? 

It's all madness, of course, and so beyond the pale that reputable media don't seem to have any way to handle such nonsense. 

And the so-called leaders of the Republican Party just carry on, scared spitless of the Trump crime family. 

Or, worses, maybe they are just fine with the chaos and the division and the wars and the injustices. 

Shame on them all. Shame on us all.

We are not going back as a nation, that seems clear. As to where we might be going? Anything but clear. 

'I missed the final but...'

My very fast four-week online strategic writing course through CSU Global wrapped up this past Sunday night, with two students not submitting the researched recommendation report at all, thus earning Ds for the course. When students earn less than a C, there is the likelihood that the course doesn't count toward graduation (though I'm certain there are ways around this... there always are).

Another student emailed me (as "Dr. Kennedy," demonstrating that he had not read my personal introduction) and expressed shock that he had forgotten to take the final exam, despite it being open for three entire days and despite my course announcement reminding everyone of the final exam "window." The student asked if there was anything to be done, or "is that just the way the cookie crumbles?"

The zero on the exam left that student with a B- and that's where it remains. I only estimated the effect of the exam grade, but I don't think the student would have earned more than a B+ even with a perfect score. CSU's system does mean that plus and minus marks do affect the GPA. 

I have not responded to the email and probably won't. What would be the point? The student passes and will soon push this little blip into a half-formed memory. 

I will likely spend more time thinking about how I MIGHT have reopened the exam for a day, and considering how unfair (or fair) that might have been. After all, I don't grade on a curve and have never met the student other than through his work for one month. 

But last night I was thinking of all those Trump voters (not to mention the people who didn't bother to vote at all in the last election) and how a common story now about American is one of regret. "Gosh, I never thought he would really... (fill in blank with whatever personally affects the source)." 

We all love second chances and I have enjoyed any number of them over many years. But I also have had to live with all sorts of bad decisions or mistaken decisions or just "non-decisions." Life went on. 

It will for my latest forgetful student, just as life will go on for other students who ignored my repeated pleading for using professional tabular formatting... built-in to Word. Or who ignored my step-by-step on how to use hanging indents for their reference lists. 

I know. I know. Following the recipe is not a reflection of intelligence and is certainly unrelated to quality of writing. But a lot of life consists of following some basic "recipes," and I honestly don't know how I could have made the required recipes more clear.

More annoying is that many times I make what turns out to be the correct choice but find myself in the minority. I have to live with 42 more months of Trump, for instance, and WWIII may be on the horizon. 

My last task for the semester is properly inputting final grades for the completed course. No creativity is required or even tolerated. There is a clear deadline and missing it might mean that CSU would stop asking me to continue as an "academic slave." 

My preference is to keep going. Some day my forgetful student may also find that simply following the clear directions is his best choice. 

I will never know.

Even video evidence is not enough to change the cult's views

Lying has always been a go-to strategy in defending our actions and words. After all, everyone know that it's tough to discern the views of two people without additional witnesses. It's just one person's word against another's. 

But we now live in a world that features high-quality video cameras in almost everyone's hands (or purses or pockets or backpacks). In nearly every clash between, for instance, police or security guards with individuals, there is now a video that is easily shared. If we are in public, there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy.

But there are still bad actors and bad deeds, and the lying is not diminishing. The treatment of a U.S. senator by Noem's security detail is a case in point. There is clear video of him raising his voice to ask a question of this appalling woman (my view) during a press conference being held in his state (California) about the ICE crackdown on immigrants (or anyone maybe being in the country illegally). 

Tension must be high among the authorities because the senator was instantly hustled out of the room and soon thrown on the floor before being handcuffed. He identified himself but the excuse is that the officers did not recognize him. Noem claimed to not recognize a senator she had testified before just a few days prior. 

There have been no apologies... though he was soon released and was never charged with anything. That is hardly satisfying.

This is classic intimidation through force and that is now where we are as a country. 

Such actions flow down from the leader and that leader is a 79-year-old man who either can't read or refuses to read, who is increasingly befuddled and who any objective person would say has lost not just a step but dozens of steps. His default is cruelty and exuding power... facts be damned.

The emperor has no clothes (and it's not a pretty sight), but the members of his court will go to great lengths to rationalize anything that the boss says or does. Those groveling cult members are beneath contempt and a majority of the public disapproves of basically Trump's entire agenda.

But we passively await the courts restoring sanity. But courts are built on delay and precision of opinion and can't possibly keep up with the deluge of illegal actions by Trump's administration. 

I like the idea of the "No Kings" protests planned across the country for Saturday. It's a clean and clear message that Americans have a 250-year history of opposing a monarchy. Not everyone opposes that monarchy, of course, but we are now confronted by the reality of a wannabe dictator governing by fiat.

And we have lots of media hoping for photogenic confrontations and investing in spreading more lies. 

That dull ache in my stomach is not going away soon.