a disquieting emotion

 

What Would Happen If the President Of The U.S.A. Went Stark-Raving Mad?

That is the tagline that appears on the cover of the novel, Night of Camp David.

The book was a "bestselling political thriller" in 1965, according to the Penguin Random House website, and although it was out-of-print for a while, it came back into print in November of 2018, "back by popular demand."

        When I first saw it on Amazon, I recognized the cover art -- I had seen it somewhere, long ago.

At first I noticed things about it that seemed a little bit -- quaint.

First -- "stark-raving mad."  That's an expression we don't hear very often now.  But the book was written in the 1960s and then, it was an expression people might use.

The other thing was the title, Night of Camp David.

OK.

Saying it in -- sort of a -- ponderous, doom-studded tone:

Night.  Of Camp David.

Like -- what -- Camp David is -- spooky, now?

------------------------------- [excerpt]

Smith motioned him into the back seat.

        "You might as well get some shut-eye," he said.  "It'll be after two when we get there."...

        He awoke with a flashlight shining in his face.  When it had been lowered and he had rubbed his eyes, he saw a Marine sergeant saluting briskly from the steps of a log guardhouse.  The snow lay deep here and the towering firs were silhouetted in the fragile moonlight.  

A snowplow had cleared the road, leaving ridges almost two feet high on either side.  The forest was thick, no wind stirred, and only the crunch of the car's tires could be heard in the hush of the night hours.  Smith stopped the limousine before the largest of a cluster of wooden buildings. ...

        ...Hollenbach rose from the sofa and began pacing the floor.  On one turn he clicked off the floor lamp, leaving the room with only thin moonlight, reflected from the snow outside, and the lazy orange tongues curling from the fireplace.  The President's features were shadowed, but MacVeagh felt eyes searching his own in the half-light.

        "You don't understand a man like that," said Hollenbach.  The words hurried from him as though fleeing an unseen enemy.  "His own future is nothing compared to his objective....He's out to grind me down....All right.  I'll say it...to destroy me....What does Patrick O'Malley risk?  He's fortunate to be vice-president.  

Even that office stretches his limited talents....He had nowhere else to go....So let's face facts.  His entire aim was to soil me, to rub some of his mud off on me, to make people think that I'm the kind of man who winks at sordid political payoffs in his official household...."

        Hollenbach came close and MacVeagh felt uncomfortable, as though he had unwittingly intruded on another's privacy.  A disquieting emotion nettled him.  Outside the snow lay blank and cold.  MacVeagh saw a dead tree, its branches missing.  Then he noted that the trunk moved and he realized, with relief, that it was a guard, probably a Marine, on duty.  The man blew on his hands and moved away, out of eye range.

        Hollenbach walked in small, nervous steps to the big window.  He stood there, mute, looking at the gray mass on the horizon.  For a minute the ticking of the mantel clock and the pop of burning logs were the only sounds.  

Then MacVeagh heard a familiar, booming laugh, so deep in tone from such a thin, wiry body that it always seemed to come from some hidden spring of resources.  Hollenbach returned to the sofa and slouched in the corner.

        "Forgive me, Jim, for getting so worked up," he said easily, "but the man has always irritated me...."

__________________________

{Night of Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.  1965.  Harper & Row}

-30-

The Courage of Cassidy Hutchinson

 

President's Dining Room in the White House

"You ain't seen nothin' yet" was the comment from one analyst, speaking about the January 6 Committee hearings.

        I was reminded of the song by the same name.  I used to hear it so much on the radio, I didn't even know who sang it because I never had to take note so I could buy the record.

On You Tube, type in

Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet  1974  Video Sound HQ

uploader / channel:  NEA ZIXNH

-------------------------- Comment under the video:

        this song is so good my neighbors threw a brick through my window to hear it better

~ Tomasita Pazos

___________________________________

Jan. 6 Committee hearings --

Day 6 was yesterday.

I listened to some of it Live-streaming on You Tube.

On Monday I was wondering:  If someone (for example, DOJ lawyer Jeffrey Clark) was pleading the Fifth Amendment so many times -- in his case, 100 times -- do they have to say the whole "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me" each time, or can they shorten it -- abbreviate it...?

        And on Tuesday my question was answered when they showed, during the hearing, a video of Mike Flynn "taking the fifth" as they say.  He answered a question, "Fifth."

Next question:  "Do you believe in the peaceful transfer of power?"

Flynn:  "Fifth."

----------------------- ......................... ??????????????!

Face-palm.

Head-palm.

Washington D.C.-palm.

U.S.A.-palm.

The "Peaceful Transfer Of Power" is one of the cornerstones of our democracy.  

        It's one of the traditions countries that are not free, admire about us and wish they had.

____________________________________

In Tuesday's testimony on January 6, 2021 capitol riot, 3 points:

|    Trump was riding in a car with secret service agents and an assistant; he asked to be driven to where the rioters (some of them armed) were gathering, Secret Service said No, he attempted to grab the steering wheel.  An agent grabbed Trump's arm to keep him away from the wheel -- the then-president lunged at the agent, using his free hand to try and grab the agent by the throat.

|    When they warned Trump some of those people are armed, we cannot control what they do and keep you safe, Trump replied, "It's OK, they're not here to hurt me."

        Like it was OK with him if they hurt people in Congress, just as long as he himself was safe.

|    Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to Mark Meadows at the time, said she entered a room in the White House and there was food and ketchup splattered on the wall, and broken dishes on the floor.  The valet was cleaning it up -- Ms. Hutchinson helped him with the picking-up, and asked what happened -- Trump threw his lunch against the wall after he heard then-Attorney General Bill Barr telling the press that there was no evidence of "widespread voter fraud" in the 2020 election, and that Trump lost.

_______________________________

 The first two incidents listed above are more important because they're  more dangerous in the bigger picture, but for some weird psychological reason, the third incident -- the food and the dishes, splattered and shattered -- had the harshest immediate impact on my mind & emotions, when I heard it.

Maybe because it's so violently inappropriate and visceral.  So far outside social norms.

        A two-year-old person throwing food and dishes:  behavior to be firmly and gently corrected.

        A 76-year-old throwing food and dishes...?

And besides, those dishes don't belong to him.  Those are White House dishes, they belong to the people.  He was privileged to eat off of them, and he is not allowed to break them just because he isn't getting his "way."

        If the government has not sent Mr. Trump a bill for any and all dishes he broke during White House tantrums, then they need to type that up and get it in the mail, pronto.

        (I couldn't help but wonder -- did Trump, like Henry Hill in Goodfellas, "order spaghetti with Marinara sauce, and get egg noodles and ketchup"? - lol)

-30-

I don't want to cause no fuss, But can I buy your Magic Bus?

 

James McCord, Watergate burglar

(on the right)

Jeffrey Clark is the person whose home was searched last Wednesday by law enforcement officials on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Mr. Clark worked at the DOJ.  He was trying to get a higher position there, that of Attorney General, by informing then-President Trump that he (Clark) would help him to illegally overturn the 2020 election.

        (U.S. Attorney General is the job held by William Barr during Trump, and by Merrick Garland now.)

Mr. Clark testified before the Jan. 6 committee in February, invoking the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times.

        (Wow, that's a whole lot of "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me."

        Maybe they don't have to say the whole thing every time, maybe they can just say, "Fifth" or something....)

        Other attorneys at the Department of Justice said they would all quit "en masse" if Clark was made A.G.  "Jeff Clark will be leading a graveyard."

        (This makes sense -- how could you have someone who pled the Fifth a hundred times now be in charge of the Department of Justice??

        Similar to hiring a literal bank robber to be president of the bank.  Lawyers might say my humble analogy is a tad imprecise, but I think it illustrates the general gist....)

--------------------------------

Reader Comment

Melvin B.

Maryland

~ "Some things are certain about the feds:  They never ask a question they do not already know the answer to.  And they never raid a place without knowing what they will find.

This wasn't a search as much as it was a collection effort."

----------------------------------

During one meeting which included then-Pres. Trump and several DOJ lawyers, as Jeffrey Clark was trying to slide his way into the top job by promising henchmanship to The Donald, Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue (in his words) "...made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the Attorney General.

 

He's never been a criminal attorney.  He's never conducted a criminal investigation in his life.  He's never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury," Donoghue told the committee last year.  "You're an environmental lawyer.  How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill."

        (I believe that suggestion might be Washington D.C.'s version of the mobster saying, "Go home and get your shinebox"....)

Mr. Clark has some crazy eyes.

_____________________________

________________________

Two (*) videos to listen to on You Tube:

*

WATCH: Former DOJ official on Trump's 'absurd' request to overhaul department leadership

uploader / channel:  PBS NewsHour

*

Magic Bus (Original Stereo Version)

uploader / channel:  TheWho

_______________________________________

-30-

"the whole thing is just bizarre"

 

I read on the Internet this morning, Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch are divorcing.

They got married in 2016.  They dated for three months before becoming engaged.

Mr. Murdoch is now 91 years old.

Jerry Hall is 65.

One Reader Comment on the Internet said,

"I don't know Jerry Hall's character, but I can't imagine why someone who was Mick Jagger's partner for 22 years would marry Rupert Murdoch, especially since he's 25 years older than her.

The whole thing is just bizarre."

        This comment kind of matched up with my immediate shocked feelings when I first read that they were engaged back in 2015.  Shock and surprise.

        I first heard of Jerry Hall in either the late 1970s or the early 1980s, cannot remember for sure.  She was a model and had this long, blonde hair that often was over one shoulder.  She was Mick Jagger's date in New York City.  I saw photographs of them and thought, "What a glamorous life!"

I loved the music of the Rolling Stones, and at that time I thought a girl must be very very fortunate to date Mick Jagger.

        Time passed, and they were still together but not married.  Then they had a child together and I thought they really should get married -- like, right now.  (That "shotgun wedding" idea was still a thing, back then.)

        But they didn't get married.  They had another child.

        Then in 1990 they got married.

        They had two more children, one in 1992 and another in 1997.

        In 1999 Mick fathered a child with a young lady in some other country, and it was the last straw for Jerry with his cheating ways -- she started divorce proceedings.

        Then they didn't need a divorce because Mick went to court and said they weren't "really" married and the court annulled it because the marriage had never been registered.

These people exhaust me.

Jerry Hall was apparently exhausted, too.  She said Mick cheated and then would apologize, and he said he wanted to be with her and their children.  She said she "forgave and forgave and forgave and forgave."  

        When they were splitting in 1999, she said she still loved him but his repeated infidelity made her very sad and very depressed.  She said because of these emotions she "couldn't be consistent."

She just couldn't stand it anymore.

        In her book which was written after their split (published in 2010) she wrote that when she and Mick see each other now, it's pleasant, they are friendly, and when he drives away it's a relief that "I don't have to worry about what he's up to."

I thought her feelings and the decisions she made were very understandable.

And Mick Jagger is understandable, too -- he is a person who was always interested in a series of different relationships with a series of different women, not marriage.  The married state wasn't really right for him.  Although he did want to do right by their children.  (So then it's like being pulled in two different directions....)

I think Jerry Hall was kind of traumatized by the relationship with Mick Jagger.  They split up in 1999 -- she married Rupert Murdoch in 2016 ... that's 17 years of being single, for a woman whose personality-type is one that wants to be in love, and be married.  You can tell, when she talks in interviews, that she is naturally enthusiastic about love, and family.

        When her engagement to Murdoch was announced -- the outcries and pearl-clutching of public opinion!  Oy.  People were going, How can she marry him?  He's terrible!

----------- Internet Comments:

eternalsceptic

A man whose life's work is to sow division, cause chaos, increase the sum total of human misery and to profit from it.  Odious individual.

~ His 'achievements' include giving the ok for the lunatic fringe to take over existing right wing parties in both the US and UK, reducing journalism to badly written propaganda and giving airtime to various madmen, anti-science nutcases and barefaced liars.

_________________________________

        I tried to understand it back in 2016, and the idea I arrived at was, she wanted to be in a happy marriage where her husband is not cheating, he loves her.

That was the thing she wanted-very-much-but-did-not-have with Mick Jagger, and she wanted to get that emotional need met.  People were screaming in Comments sections:  'she just wants his money!!' -- I did not see that, she has her own money, some from her Jagger relationship and some from her modeling career.

One Comment under the Murdoch divorce article said, "She wanted to be loved & treasured."

        That's what I think, too.

-30-

11:50

 

1.

After Midnight

...A jostling crowd gathered under the bright lights to watch the dignitaries leave.  MacVeagh waved and shook his head at the Secretary of Defense, who offered him a ride in a Pentagon limousine.  Instead he walked bareheaded into the frosty March night.

        As he turned left on 16th Street, heading toward Lafayette Park and the White House, James F. MacVeagh felt on good terms with himself and even relatively at peace with the world.  In his chosen profession, politics, he had risen as swiftly and as effortlessly as a kite in a gust, and the glitter of the Gridiron dinner seemed a minor summit for Senator MacVeagh.  

At age thirty-eight, a first-term senator, he had been placed at the head table and now he was summoned to the White House for a private midnight drink.  In Washington terms, he was in, very much in, and while his status did not surprise him, he was buoyed by it.  

The whisky and wine mingled smoothly in his big frame and the chill wind on his cheeks contrasted with the warmth within.  He ran a hand through his tangle of black hair as he passed the imposing headquarters of the AFL-CIO, with its illuminated lobby mural of gilded toilers, and he began to whistle a song from the Gridiron show, "I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling."  The lyric had aptly characterized the rapidly descending political fortunes of Vice-President Patrick O'Malley in the wake of revelations about his part in the federal sports arena scandals.

        MacVeagh cut through Lafayette Park, where mounds of snow from last week's storm still had failed to thaw.  He noted a tiny sign in a flower bed and bent over to read it in the light of the shrouded moon.  "Tulips sleeping here," it read.  MacVeagh made a mental note to use the phrase in a Senate speech.  Such souvenirs of imagination in the vast, gray federal bureaucracy merited recognition....

Why Jim MacVeagh for a Saturday night visit?  He knew the President well, had advised him on midwestern strategy in the campaign, but he was no confidant.  Come to think of it, was anybody?

        But MacVeagh felt too carefree for fretful speculation.  He jaywalked across Pennsylvania Avenue, and nodded to the White House policeman guarding the high iron gates of the west entrance.

        "Jim MacVeagh," he said.

        "I know, Senator," said the guard, standing close and inspecting his face.  "We got a call from the house."

        MacVeagh walked up the curving driveway past snow-topped Japanese yews bordering the drive like ermine balloons.  The west wing was dark, but the center of the mansion threw a circle of light in which the great elms, preserved from blight by constant spraying, cast shadows of embroidered linen over the snow. 

 A gardener had shaken the snow off the ancient boxwoods in front of the portico and they shone bright green, as with new leaves, in the light of the hanging lantern.

        Inside, in the museum-like foyer, MacVeagh was undoing his scarf when a young man with a swarthy face walked toward him.  He was grinning, his teeth white as limestone in a rainstorm.  MacVeagh recognized him as a member of the White House Secret Service detail.

        "Luther Smith, Senator," he said.  "Don't bother taking your things off.  The man went to Camp David and I've got orders to bring you along."

        "Camp David!"  MacVeagh looked at his wrist watch.  11:50.  Camp David, the presidential mountain retreat built by Franklin D. Roosevelt under the original name Shangri-la, was 80 miles away in the Catoctin range of Maryland.  That meant two hours over icy roads.  "Good Lord, did he say why?"

        "No.  We don't ask," said Smith.  "All I know is that he just left and I've got orders to take you by your home for a change of clothes and then drive you on up to the lodge."

        "Orders, huh?"

        "Orders, sir."  Smith grinned again with his flash of white teeth.  MacVeagh liked the man.

        "All right.  Let's go."

        A long, purring limousine waited on the curved driveway.... ----------------------------------------- [end / excerpt]

_________________________________

{Night of Camp David.  A novel written by Fletcher Knebel.  1965 - Harper & Row.}

-30-

what is puzzling us?

 

in the New York Times

June 21, 2022 - updated June 22, 2022

Panel Ties Trump to Fake Elector Plan, Mapping His Attack on Democracy

------------- The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack showed how the former president leaned on state officials to invalidate his defeat, opening them up to violent threats when they refused.

some of the Reader Comments:

PLMM

California

After listening to Rusty Bowers' last statement from his journal, I wanted to cry.  The pressure and threats these officials were subjected to amounts to abuse.  

I am at a loss for words at the cruelty that Trump, Eastman, Giuliani, and others inflicted on these honorable men.  

What kind of society do we live in that tolerates that kind of behavior from our leadership?

ed

los angeles

The Republican party leans heavily on the use and threat of violence to achieve its aims.  The Republican party is more akin to a terrorist organization than a political party.

Ken G.

Chicago

Why in the world have Trump and Giuliani not been put on trial?  What the fudge more do you want?

hmm

online

Still don't get why DOJ did not charge Meadows with contempt.  In addition to this guy being in the middle of everything, was he not burning docs in his office fireplace?

Joe Giardullo

Marbletown

If we do not take legal action against the plotters of this clear and admitted assault on our democracy, we are guaranteeing a repeat, this time fully financed and organized to succeed.  Merrick Garland, do your job and do it now.

John 

Pennsylvania

If trump and his co-traitors don't end up in prison we'll have had our last real election.  Why would the republicans not steal the next election if they know it's without risk?  Trump is the worst thing that has ever happened to America.

GregG

Flagstaff, Arizona

I agree--it'll be so much worse if he's not prosecuted.

Christopher

North Carolina

If Eastman, Giuliani and Meadows don't go to jail for their attempt to steal the 2020 election, I might as well just go out and rob a bank!

Casey

Canada

It's hard to feel anything for America anymore.  It just seems inevitable that it will descend further into madness.

Homer

Utah

Casey, We are not descending into madness.  We are fighting against the goons and thugs that the mobster trump has stirred up.  We good people will prevail and get them a go to jail card.

NRNT

Pittsburgh

We keep saying nobody is above the law.  If prosecutors leave Trump off the hook because they're scared of his thugs or want to give him a pass for being a FORMER president, then they just told everyone our democracy is a joke.

William Harris

West Coast

if traitor 45 is not prosecuted republicans will do this all over again.

--------------------------------------

-30-

hubris is interesting

 

Left:  Rudy Giuliani

Center:  President George W. Bush

"Hubris is interesting, because you get people who are often very clever, very powerful, have achieved great things, and then something goes wrong - they just don't know when to stop."

~ Margaret MacMillan, Canadian historian

Day 4

of January 6 Committee hearings

They had the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives in to take questions from the committee.  (I was thinking that was done Under Oath, but was not sure -- today I saw, Yes, it's Under Oath.)

The Speaker's name is Russell "Rusty" Bowers.  He spoke very seriously, calm, and straightforward, doing his best (I thought) to answer questions in a way that could illuminate the events for all of us.

He described getting phone calls from Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani after the 2020 election -- they were asking him to "find" more votes and get different electors and change the voting result in Arizona from a Biden win to a Trump win.

State Rep. Bowers told them No, he was not going to do that, because it would go against the oath he took when he was elected to public office.  He has to stick by the rules, he tells them.

        Giuliani and Trump said "OK," then they called back later, on another day, and asked him again.

        When they take that oath, it's on the Bible and you say, "so help me God."  (Trump and Giuliani:  "God?!  Don't listen to Him!  Listen to us!"  lol)

Trump tweeted about Bowers' refusal, and after that Bowers got death threats, he testified.  

So many e-mails and texts at his office that they couldn't work, and at his home every Saturday, people came around and said in the neighborhood that he was a pedophile and other bad stuff, to try and punish him for not going along with Trump's attempt to overturn a free and fair election.  

Some guy came on a Saturday and pestered Speaker Bowers' neighbor, while showing a gun.

While they were trying to talk Bowers into doing what they wanted, Bowers asked Trump and Giuliani if they had evidence of what they were saying.  Giuliani said, "We have a lot of theories."  But did they have evidence? -- Bowers persisted.

        None was produced.

This is unique in our history, although we've had crazy stuff before -- slavery, the Civil War, Ku Klux Klan, etc.

        But this current thing is kind of new.  Carl Bernstein (Watergate reporter and co-author of the book, All The President's Men) said Donald Trump is "the first seditious president."

After the evidence part of the testimony, a committee member asked Speaker Bowers what his impression was, of what the White House was doing, and he answered, "Well it reminded me of that book, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."  Like Trump and his people were just running around, saying whatever.

..."a lot of theories"...

        (The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, written by journalist Jimmy Breslin, is the story of Papa Baccala, a Brooklyn Mafia boss, and Kid Sally Palumbo, a would-be capo who "couldn't run a gas station at a profit even if he stole the customers' cars.")

Meanwhile -- Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City who held things together on 9-11, now has a You Tube channel where he sits and speaks into a camera.  The video I watched, he did a commercial in the middle of it, then went back to what he was talking about.

Unbelievable.

A stunning bounce from sterling credibility in 2001 to virtually no credibility in 2022.

-30-

hang my pants

 

On the June 13th post here, I listed the main things to worry about / fix, and I forgot climate change.

        That isn't something to forget.

So it's --

Ukraine

fascist takeover in the U.S.

mass shootings

Citizens United (overturn)

gerrymandering (outlaw it -- computers can draw voting district lines using a fair and unbiased algorithm)

Supreme Court (no longer legitimate - needs oversight, maybe...?)

climate change

_________________________________

Can we handle seven major problems?

We would not have so many really hard problems if politicians had done the right thing in the first place instead of only enriching themselves.

And maybe we have to add filibuster to that list.

So -- eight.

2 reader comments under NYT story headlined, "Republican Drive to Tilt Courts Against Climate Action Reaches a Crucial Moment."

        A Supreme Court environmental case being decided this month is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general and conservative allies:

Barbarossa

Longuyland

~ What is beginning to become clear is that the corporate interests and their Republican servants have been implementing a well thought out strategic plan with long term goals.  

Environmental regulatory policy is just one small part of it.  

Broadly speaking, "regulatory capture" has been achieved and our government no longer is capable of functioning in the best interests of "We the People."  

Rather, the corporate interests of Big Oil, Big Pharma, etc. have become the primary considerations.

Evan

Berlin

~ End the filibuster.  

Expand the court. 

Pass an environmental protection amendment to the US constitution.  

Make it unlawful to harm the nation's natural resources.  

This should have been done at the dawn of the industrial revolution.  

Now we have no choice but to take aggressive, drastic action.  

We really have no choice.  

Corruption is endemic in US government.  

This is what constitutions are for.  

Write it in stone.

______________________________

January 6 Committee hearings can be watched on You Tube.

Under one of the videos where the committee discussed how President Trump tried to pressure Vice President Pence to overturn the election, someone typed in a comment saying when the rioters were chanting,

"Hang Mike Pence!"

it came out sounding like

"Hang my pants!"

-30-

life has more imagination than we do

 

"In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People."

~ Eugene Victor Debs

        I read an article that was analyzing the psychology of people who prefer authoritarian government.  It mentioned a RWA test -- a test you take to see if you have a "Right Wing Authoritarianism" mind-set, and to what degree.

        I took the test online.  The score was supposed to range from 20 to 180.  Higher scores mean the person has some tolerance or even enthusiasm for authoritarian rule; a lower score indicates that you don't believe in authoritarianism.

        Somehow I got an 11.9....

A reader comment on the article said:

~ Every culture has this stripe of person.  They are the kind that would have been Nazis in Germany, communists in the Soviet Union, revanchists in Spain, or monarchists in any number of kingdoms.  

It isn't left or right, it's belief in a ruler that will kick in the teeth of the guy you don't like while giving you the due you have wrongly been denied.

-------------------------------------

Goodness.

Or -- yikes.

It had occurred to me in recent years, that some people sound like they vote based on - they think their candidate is going to "get" someone.  I didn't want to think that, but it kind of looked that way sometimes.  So when I read that comment I thought, Yeah, someone else had entertained this theory too.

        An example of this way of thinking -- a woman spoke to the media in early 2019 on the subject of Trump's presidency.  She said, "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."

        WHAT??!  Why would she vote for someone hoping that he would hurt people? -- that's sick....  But see, it's like that reader comment -- a 'belief in a ruler that will get after people (or groups) that I don't like'...

...and 'give you the due you've wrongly been denied'

        Huh?

It's like maybe a Grievance Mind-Set, or something.

(Remember the Friends episode where the guy in the apartment building kept a journal titled, "My Big Book of Grievances" and it included notes about Joey and Chandler walking in the hallway...?)

Oh my stars, I just Googled My Big Book of Grievances to make sure I got the phrase right -- they're selling them online, you can buy one!

(Face-palm.)

-------------------------------------

That reminds me, Oprah did a segment once in the 90s or early 2000s where she talked about journals on a dedicated subject:  like a Gratitude Journal, and an Epiphany Journal.

        When you do this, it does make you think of things you might not have noticed otherwise.  It's useful, if you're inclined to do a little writing.  It helps a person to reflect, and understand, and get ideas, and feel encouraged.

-30-

sittin' on the outside...

 

U.S. Senator from North Carolina, Sam Ervin - 1973

(sitting at table, second from left)

Listening to the Jan. 6 committee hearings on You Tube:  the process is being guided by U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, Chair, and U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, who is Vice chair.

(Ms. Cheney represents Wyoming; Mr. Thompson represents a district in the state of Mississippi.)

As I listened, the Watergate hearings came to mind -- Thompson and Cheney are doing such a good job, they made me think of Sam Ervin, who ran the Senate hearings in 1973 to try and get to the bottom of those shenanigans.

Appropriate equanimity and gravitas, I thought.

The other similarity to the 1973 proceedings is Southern accents! - luscious, pillowy -- they make the listener feel kind of calm and pleasantly lazy and expansive, even while the speaker is describing some things that aren't very good, or honest.

        Bennie Thompson's is of course a Mississippi accent, while Sam Ervin's was North Carolinian -- Southerners could probably differentiate between them right away, but to my personal midwestern listenership -- they both just make me wanna put on a Muddy Waters record!

        Oh, yeah

        Oh, yeah

        Everything gonna be alright this mornin'...

♪ ♪ ♫♫ ♫

And, to me, Liz Cheney has no accent -- she just "talks regular."

To her fellow members of Congress she said, "To those Republicans who are defending the indefensible, there will come a day when Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."

-30-

Idiocracy?

 

Kristin Davis in "Sex And The City"

So many things to worry about, now.

Ukraine

Fascist takeover in the U.S.

mass shootings

Things to deal with:

Citizens United

gerrymandering

Supreme Court dumpster fire

_______________________________

We were not vigilant enough about our democracy.  We let it slide, let it slide, accept stuff that we know isn't going to be good....

shootings.

They say background checks.

That's probably good, but it isn't going to catch people's stupid spoiled kids who want to have a murder-tantrum because they saw someone else do it.  They don't have records.  Someone pointed this out in internet comments, I had not thought of it.

No AR-15s or other weapons of war.

They're talking about raising age limit to purchase a gun from 18 to 21.  Someone suggested 27 was a better age because people's brains are still forming up to age 25.

I like 27, I think.

Back when Columbine set the template for these horrors, I remember feeling so shocked by it and having the feeling of -- why were these young boys in so much pain or depression that they would do that?

        And I felt sorry for their parents.  I thought, "Oh they will never get over this, and they will feel terrible for the rest of their lives that they raised sons who did something so evil."

It seems like parents can do everything right and sons or daughters can make choices and do things where the parents feel like, "where in the hell did they get the idea to do that?"  Parents can do things right, and kids can still be bad.

On the other hand -- after the one in Buffalo -- the supermarket -- the thought came to my mind -- 'What's the matter with the parents??!  Jesus.'

        I didn't mean to think that -- it just occurred.  America is sick of shootings, it's stupid and wrong and we are essentially -- putting up with it.  Tolerating it.  We are all sick of this, and for the first time I had this strong impulse to blame the parents.  (I've never felt like that before.)

But -- you know -- it said in one article, the parents bought the little shit a gun on his 16th birthday, and there was a photo (in the NYPost, I think -- leave it to them...) of the Gendron family:  two parents, the 18-year-old murderer, and two younger brothers with faces blurred.  Each family member holding a "gun."

They are in some kind of public space, standing on grass -- there are parked cars in the near background.  

        What were these idiots planning on shooting???!!!

I don't even know if the guns were real, or toys, nor do I care.  This posing, preening, "Look!  Guns!"  It's demented.

They don't seem like hunting-type people.  Just -- posers - ?

How could those parents not know their son, who was living at home, not in school, not working at a job -- how could they not know he was stockpiling guns, "silver" (? - whatever), and body armor?

        How could they not know what he was up to, and playing at, and how did he get money for all that?

These people have a nice, beautiful house in upstate New York.  Both parents have jobs as civil engineers for the state.  Combined income of $183,000 a year.  What's to complain of?  What is their problem?  

        Do they teach their children right from wrong?  Do they teach them ethics?  Or do they just ignore any bad behavior and keep saying to the kid, 

"Yoo-R-great - I LLLUUUVVVV YOOOOOO"...

Pardon the capital letters, but -- from societal observation I get the impression that this is what some parents do.  They're tired, they both work, they want to be nice to their children.  

        And if the mother and father would have different ideas on how to help a troubled kid, then they would probably get into a pattern where they know if they bring up the subject between the two of them, there's going to be an argument...?  So they don't bring it up...?  Turn a blind eye and hope he grows out of it?

        There was an episode of Sex and the City (the HBO series, not the movies) where Charlotte, Samantha, Carrie, and Miranda get a rented car and drive out of New York City to the suburbs to attend a baby shower for a woman who they used to party with but now she has settled down, married, and is having a baby.  

        Everyone else at the party, they're all mothers and chatting excitedly about how wonderful motherhood is and their children are so fabulous and wonderful -- our four main characters are a little bit shut out of all this bubbling happy-talk. -- (It's "happy" but also a little competitive...)

One brunette woman with a super-happy smile says intensely to Carrie and Miranda, "My son is a god and I tell him so every day!"

        Miranda and Carrie look at each other like, 'How can we escape?'

        When I notice children who seem like they have been exceedingly indulged but not taught anything, I think of that scene.

-30-