Trumping America

"It's amazing to me. A guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup.”  "Donald is not going to 'Make America Great.' He's going to make America orange!"

~ Marco Rubio on Donald Trump

Historically presidential election years are characterized by truths and half-truths, partisanship, accusations, a fair bit of slander and enough melodrama to fill up several seasons of daytime TV.  They’re a Machiavellian daytime soap.  It’s popular to look back longingly at elections past and glorify them for having the dignity that never was.  And so we always try to lean on that nostalgia and the pretense that each upcoming election will rediscover statesmanship.  Yeah this election has squashed any hope of decorum. This election year a process that has at least historically pretended to having dignity has all of the decorum of a rolling barrel of random trash.  And that barrel was set in motion by the antics of one Donald J. Trump.  He came onto the political scene with all of the grace and tact of an exploding gasoline truck. 

Brief Notes from a Political Dreamer

I’m a dreamer apparently.  I’ve always thought of myself as being pretty matter of fact; pragmatic to the point of being stodgy.  I guess not.  Since I’ve hitched my political wagon to one Bernard Sanders I’ve been relegated to the ranks of the starry eyed idealists; Utopians with big ideas and small chance for success.  I’ve been told by the Hillary crowd that a vote for Sanders is tantamount to a vote for the GOP.  “We like Sanders," they say in that patronizing, I'm talking to an 8 year old tone.  "He’s got good ideas but they aren’t realistic.  Hillary has a better chance of beating Trump.”

The Quadrennial Games

It’s time once again for the quadrennial party.  You know the one.  That over the top orgy of backbiting, name calling, sore losers, graceless winners, allegations of cheating, actual cheating, xenophobia, jingoism, backroom deals, payoffs, under the table money and other assorted bad behavior.  Thought I was going to write about the Summer Olympics didn’t you?  Maybe another time.  This is about the presidential elections. 

Fixing the Internet (or call Al Gore)

Sunday evening and the daughter was indignant, “The internet isn’t working,” she called down from the corner upstairs bedroom.  The whole internet or just ours?  I wondered if Al Gore would be available on short notice.  I mean who better to call to fix the internet than the guy who (apocryphally) invented the damn thing.  It had been a long, hard day of moving.  The house was a mess.  There wasn’t one room in the place save the bathrooms that wasn’t piled with boxes and bags.  I’d just been on the internet earlier in the day so I tried to ignore her and hoped the whole issue would go away.  I don’t like fixing electronic things.  Then again I don’t like fixing plumbing things, metal things, wooden things, mechanical things or automotive things.  Yeah, I’m not the DIY guy.  If I ever win the lottery I’m going to put a DIY person on retainer.

What Exactly Did You Meme By That?

“How about you turn in your guns,” President Obama said, pointing a threatening finger.  Well there it was; right there on the internet, right there on Facebook.  I could see it in my mind as if it were really happening.  The President of the United States is knocking on my door, flanked by two U.S Marshalls and trailed by those suited guys who sport shades and earpieces.   And then he says, “How about you turn in your guns.  Boys", he says to the marshals, “do your duty.”  And so they push me aside and march into my home like SS storm troopers and ransack the place until they find the two black powder Civil War replicas that I’ve used in reenactments.  And then The President of the United States and his minions go on to pillage the next house, leaving me to sweep up the shattered bric –a- brac and right the overturned furniture.  Sure as hell it’s going to happen.  It has to because I saw it on Facebook, on the internet and in a meme.  Because if it’s in a meme it must be true. 

Sodden Holiday Thoughts

We’re approaching that holiday time of the year once again.  Actually if you believe corporate it’s been holiday season since sometime around Labor Day.  Time to buy the little woman a Lexus or a Mercedes to go with the thousand dollar bauble from Zale’s.  Break out the camping gear because Black Friday is a-comin’ and you gotta blow off a couple weeks of PTO so that you can save a hundred bucks on a TV.  Every year about this time I try to come up with some holiday theme.  It gets a little harder every year and I was despairing a bit until Starbucks dropped a big present under the tree and a self-styled evangelist put a giant bow on it.

A Night in the Emergency Room

“The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.” ~ Florence Nightingale

“A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.” ~ Groucho Marks

“I joke, but only half joke, that if you show up in an American hospital missing a finger, no one will believe you until they get a CAT scan, MRI and orthopedic consult.”  ~ Abraham Verghese

As firsts go it wasn’t exactly my idea of a memorable milestone.  But there I was strapped to a gurney, taking a ride in an ambulance.  And this one came complete with a paramedic in training.  “Do you mind if our trainee treats you today?” one of the paramedics asked?  “No it’s alright; go for it.”

It all started when I came home from the gym and sat down to watch sports.  I felt a crappiness that I'd never felt before.  The wife and I debated what to do and I decided that maybe we just ought to drive down to emergency.  We’d just about got out of town when feeling crappy turned to feeling like ten pounds of shit in a five pound sack.  “You know I’m not feeling at all good.  Let’s just swing around and go back to the fire station.”  

Three firefighters greeted us and led us into the garage where they hooked me up to a cardiogram.  My racing pulse had slowed down and the irregular heartbeat was back to normal.  I was actually feeling a bit better than when we pulled in.  That’s the way it always works isn’t it?  That toothache that felt like a cattle prod in your mouth all day long turns benign the minute the dentist walks in and you end up feeling like a dumb ass.  I tried to beg off of the ambulance ride but I was talked out of it by all three firefighters and the wife.