Recap

Over the past few years my life has been modified to reflect the natural order of things.

Congressional Democrats and one Senate Republican were desperately trying to impeach President Donald Trump because, well, just because.  Twenty-four hour news about this half-baked effort further split America politically because a presidential election is due in November.

Amid all this, I awoke one January morning and learned my flu shot was no defense against something called Coronavirus disease 19.  All I needed to do to prevent from getting this disease was wash my hands for 20-seconds.

That was until varying state governors and federal doctors and scientists claimed their newly-enacted emergency laws required everyone wear a mask lest we would contract this flu and die.

We were not allowed outside to bike, walk, swim, picnic, paint, perform yard duties, wash the car, or any other exercise that might – MIGHT – spread this underplayed flu to others.

Soon, neighbors were turning neighbors in to the police for sweeping their sidewalk; police were threatening others for planting garden seeds, while grocery stores remained open for business.

Whilst this was occurring, politicians across the country demanded we be remanded to what I call “house-arrest.”  We were ordered to remain indoors, segregated from society, while local jurisdictions released criminals from their jails.  It is still unclear as to who was supposed to be protected by these inane orders.

Nonetheless, we obeyed and avoided gyms, doctor’s offices, and general socializations. 

To stem the tide of spreading this flu America intentionally put the brakes on our incredible economy.  Stores, businesses, and generally non-essential enterprises were ordered to shut down.  This was designed to keep people home to prevent transmission of the Coronavirus.

Mortgages were quickly becoming delinquent, cars were on the verge of being repossessed, and credit cards were being maxxed-out, as schools were being closed and all students given reprieves from dreaded final exams.

Restaurants remained closed to protect the adults in America.  Those are the same adults that are supposed to use “common sense” to select our leaders through elections.  Too bad our incumbent politicians think we’re too stupid to decide if, when, and where we can leave our homes to simply exercise.  I’m just saying…

Meanwhile, sporting events were put on hold, including golf, football, basketball, soccer, fishing, horseracing, auto racing, and competitive gardening (more on that in the future,) wound up in suspended animation.

Keeping schools closed also means no college sports, either.

But street thugs and anarchists hijacked protests of a bad white cop killing a black counterfeiter.  Protests quickly turned violent with stores and restaurants becoming victims of arson.  Looting clothes and HDTVs became fashionable while police vehicles were damaged, all in the name of “peace and justice.”

Suddenly, those critical medical masks from paragraph four weren’t so critical because the thugs and malcontents wreaking havoc on society were now in charge.

Local mayors and involved governors decided this mayhem was acceptable and let the miscreants ‘do their thing’ all the while threatening the law-abiding among us with jail time for flouting the important mask orders.

Since this all began, professional sports have discovered ways to permanently chase fans and patrons away, wholesale.

Throughout all this, Congresspeople and Senators have been criticizing President Trump for his attempt to restore a sense of normalcy to our country.  Their words of encouragement are directed at society’s hooligans as they are now cheering the removal of statues.

Speaker Pelosi demonstrating the correct use of a mask

Yes, statues have become more dangerous to society than killing babies.  Historic works, some of which are over a century old, are being destroyed in the vein of eliminating societal discomfort and overcoming “systemic racism.”  Speaker Nancy Pelosi is active in this effort.

Life is beginning to settle down as restaurants are now reopening, and looters and arsonists seem to be running out of matches.  And the populace is once again beginning to smile about their lives.

As an effort to help, Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff have announced their desire to get back to their impeachment efforts of the President.

Atta way, boys and girls!  You just demonstrated how much you abhor America and Americans.

Way Back When

Back in 1969, a British group named Jethro Tull made a song titled “Living in the Past.”

It’s a catchy tune, in fact, probably their best known song.  Just what it was directed at is up for debate; some music scholars believe it was written about ruing the effects of war, others think it was directed at past personal relationships.

Jethro Tull, the band

In any case, I like that tune.

But it was this song that got me thinking about life, in general.

People have been talking about the way things were “way back when.”

The tiny Eastern Shore town in which I reside has seen many changes throughout the years, some of which have been positive.  Wink. Wink.

Back when, there were 15 churches serving this little whistle stop.  Today, there is just one.

Back when, people spoke cordially to one another.  Today, my neighbors prefer to remain anonymous.

Back when, the town’s volunteer fire department erected Christmas lights over the streets that remained up year-round.  Today, there are none.  Alas.

Those changes are fondly referred to as “progress.”  And, I’m told, that those changes are a result of people being busier than they were, back when.

I’m pretty sure that is an anomaly in the analyzation of the situation.  People didn’t have 30-hours in a day; back when, the days were still 24-hours long.

In any case, living in the past was fine for that time in our lives.  Our friends were different – likely they were young neighborhood miscreants with whom we were forced to associate because we didn’t drive at the age of 12.  We all had bicycles with tons of miles ridden behind us.

We played whiffle ball and dodge ball because we didn’t have computer games.  We were considered fortunate to have extra loose leaf paper to draw pictures on.  And each boy had a toy gun of some sort in order to play army or cowboys and Indians.

Our parent’s biggest woe was us buying beer from the corner store.  We didn’t worry about illegal drug use.  Our parents were afraid to overdose on aspirin, but were delighted to score some Valium, to “calm their nerves.”  Washing them down with a glass of Scotch helped them reach the finish line sooner, FYI.

A stolen bicycle was akin to horse theft.  Today, armed car jackings are generally shrugged off unless someone dies in the process.  Times have really changed.

But it was when time came to respond to the ol’ high school reunion that things went catawampus.

HS reunions are events everyday friends and foes put their difference aside and reunite for the sole purpose of bragging about you to people who could care less.

Back when, the kids I went to school were not very bright, as I recall.

My classmates in kindergarten couldn’t cut a straight line with those crappy scissors, and ate that white paste the teachers gave us.

Third grade brought some real challenges when dismissal time arrived.  At least a few kids couldn’t locate their own coats and umbrellas for the trip home.

Sixth grade was simply awful for many who had difficulty reading and doing simple advanced placement calculus.

Before long we all made the transition to high school where the proverbial wheat was separated from the chaff.

There was no time to slow or wait for the less studious among us.  Others in our classes needed the rigidity and structure to keep the lesson plans on schedule.  Period.

Again, our passage into society or higher education finally occurred.  And then, after most of the angst waned, you get a letter inviting you to attend your class reunion.

That diet won’t work quickly enough, your résumé isn’t going improve in three months, and your health insurance doesn’t cover plastic surgery.  Just stay home with some Valium and Scotch.

It’s time to stop living in the past.

Two Free Bus Tickets

Revolutionary Communist Party Member

Gregory Lee Johnson

It was during the 1984 Republic National Convention, in Dallas, Texas, that Gregory Lee Johnson felt compelled to burn the American flag.  Since I wasn’t there, I have no way to know why, but he was promptly arrested for desecration of the American flag, as he should have been.

But Johnson, it turns out, was protesting something – much like exuberant youths of today are regularly protesting something, anything – deemed unfair, dangerous, too white, too black, too cold, not cold enough.  But you get the idea; and Johnson took the matter of his arrest to the Supreme Court.

A team of lawyers took Johnson’s case there under the idea his blatant, arrogant arson of an iconic symbol was merely him exercising his First Amendment rights under The Constitution.

Since the Court was split to favor Democrats – the party that hates America and Americans – the ruling, after deliberation, agreed with Johnson.  It said he could burn the American flag even though his actions expressed hate during a time when America was healing.

Keep in mind the Vietnam war had just ended with returning soldiers spat upon and called dirty names for trying to perform their jobs in a foreign country in which they weren’t wanted.  They returned to a country where strangers were now berating them, too.

Johnson’s Supreme Court ruling was heralded as a milestone for free speech followed soon thereafter by drowning religious icons in jars of urine in the name of art under The First Amendment.  Leftists now possessed a get-out-of-jail-free card to do nearly anything antagonistic, and hide beneath the very Constitution they so hate.

It’s been nearly forty years since Johnson became famous for poking his finger in the proverbial bear.  And this is where my story begins.

Since I was a little kid I enjoyed a sport called NASCAR racing.  Stock automobiles were used in the beginning of this motorsport as its name National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing implies.

Racers would drive the family sedan to the track, race and drive home in the same vehicle, hopefully with the winner’s check.

Most highly educated people – at least they think they are – look down on NASCAR racing and its fans as being less-than-equal to themselves as grossly undereducated.

That’s their opinion, but there’s an old saying that goes, “Opinions are like a$$ holes; everybody has got one, and they all stink.”

Up until this last week – June 7, 2020 – to be precise, I watched NASCAR races and enjoyed most of them.

Decades of cheering for spectacular races and fraction-of-a-second finishes, kept me coming back week after week after week, for over fifty years.

Leading up to June 7^th, our nation turned into a tinderbox with malcontents and troublemakers burning buildings and looting and taking over entire sections of cities, all in the name of something they term “systemic racism.”

NASCAR used to have black drivers, and still has black pit crew members, as well as black NASCAR officials.

The lone black driver in 2020 NASCAR is a fellow named Bubba Wallace.  His entry into the sport a handful of years ago was met with great hoopla about the sport re-integrating.

Before the June 7^th race, Wallace read a heartfelt note from his Mother about how she was concerned over any run-ins he might have that would lead to his death at the hands of the police.

After the race, he collapsed during an interview with race reporter Jamie Little.  And later, he expressed his concern about Confederate flags flying over the varying race venues – many of which are located in the South.

NASCAR immediately issued a dictum to preclude any Confederate flag from flying or being noticed at any track on the circuit.  Their reasoning is that no one should feel uncomfortable.

Two people who are nearly forty years apart in their actions and opinions have demonstrated how weak a nation America has become.  The American flag is no longer sacred, as is the Confederate flag.  Both are an integral part of our history, right or wrong.

Both flew over deadly battles in which patriotic Americans died for their beliefs.  And now those symbolic banners have been relegated to the rag bag because of the lame opinions and feelings of two whiners.

There are many things that upset me, too.  But I don’t rally fellow Americans to burn, loot, and ruin the lives of others. 

I feel these aforementioned malcontents should have been given a one-way bus ticket out of the country rather than fame. 

As a footnote, Wallace, in a post race interview was asked about racism he personally felt growing up in America; he said he felt very little if any.  Glad he climbed aboard the victim du jour bus.

Way to go, America!

The Problem With Identity Politics

The law of unintended consequences is in direct correlation with the adage about paving the road to Hell with good intentions.

An example of unintended consequences is when you install security bars on your windows to keep people out; unfortunately, during a fire, they also keep people in.

America is the ultimate experiment in nation building.  Begun in the early 1600’s America became home to countless peoples from around the world, who left their native countries to join in fostering a new nation by all, for all.

Along the way we stumbled.  Because of colonization and slavery and discrimination, among other sins we created along the way, our country became an example of both what to do, and what not to do, when creating a nation out of whole cloth.

After 400 years of fine-tuning, we have reached a point in our nation’s history when its inhabitants are in a quandary about many things, one of which is how to talk, the other is how to listen.

Not being a perfect country, America consists of - as I stated in paragraph three – peoples from all around the world.  Along with the arrival of these new cultures and languages, customs and clothing, foods and religions, we also received new ideas and attitudes.

We are not a homogenous a nation as we would tend to believe.  Our tenets have guided us through centuries – actually the longest continual free nation in the history of the planet – via The United States Constitution.

The Constitution serves as a quick reference guide to what we are, how we should live, what the limitations of the government are, and when we should say, “Enough!”

Since January 2020, our nation has been taken hostage by a Chinese-originated virus that has turned the world upside down with fear.  It had so terrified American politicians that they practically suspended the first, second, and twenty-first Amendments.

People were immediately plunged into destitution and frightened to the point of fist-fighting inside stores to get toilet paper.  “Esteemed” doctors and scientists peppered the radio and television airwaves to insist which prophylaxis was best and which was merely a waste of time and money.

The following week, those very same doctors and scientists insisted their 180 degree turn in opinions and directives were because of new evidence.  It seems as though they were as baffled as the rest of us, and they still are.

We needed to stay 6-feet apart from one another; not five, not seven, but six.  That was the magic number.  We were told to wear masks to prevent the spread of the infamous virus, and to wash our hands thoroughly for 20-seconds.  And this information reached us through the media.

Unfortunately, the media was lying to its people because of their hate for Donald J. Trump, our President. They told us promising drugs which would help stave off this flu wouldn’t work; that President Trump was spinning yarns about its effectiveness.

The media further insisted people were taking aquarium cleaning tablets which were causing their deaths, because of President Trump; that was a lie.  It seemed anything President Trump uttered was deemed a lie, when, in fact, that was the truth.

If that were not enough mayhem for a country sliding into a lockdown, no income, fewer jobs, a lying press, and confused doctors, a bad cop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, killed an innocent, unarmed man.

Immediately, as if on cue, hundreds of thousands of “protestors” gathered in mass across the globe for the cause of “justice.”  The victim, George Floyd, was the cause célèbre, suddenly going from obscurity to stardom because of a terrible, unforgivable tragedy.

Cardboard signs carried by angry protestors were visible everywhere on every TV news channel and internet news sight and newspaper.  People in Great Britain marched, as did others in Japan, for justice for Mr. Floyd.

Of course, interspersed throughout this display of angry numbers of marchers arose angry, destructive troublemakers who broke windows, burned shops, looted sneaker stores, set police vehicles ablaze, and attacked and killed innocent others, all in the name of George Floyd.

After a more than a week of sheer mayhem, the “leaders” of this goat rodeo began issuing inane demands.  Among their demands, they want more dialogs about race relations, and disbanding the police as a start to alleviating their anxiety.

Spineless mayors, governors, and Congressclowns, are actually considering dissolving police departments, while any dialog is instantaneously met with chants of “you don’t know me,” and “it’s a Black thing.”

The aforementioned Constitution is now being nitpicked by those liberal politicians, who suddenly love the First, Fourth, Tenth Amendments to keep troops away from providing law and order.

As a nation we’ve been through much worse.  But survival as a country depends on unity, not division.  Keep that in mind when you see a cardboard sign that reads: Black Lives Matter.  What about every other life? 

And that’s another example of the law of unintended consequences.

A Rose

It is the beginning of June 2020, and the United States inhabitants have lost their collective minds.

It seems as though the corona virus/COVID-19 has been spreading throughout the world – originating in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.

Over the past several weeks, the liberal press has been hammering President Donald Trump because he called COVID-19 the “Chinese Flu.”  It is.  Sorry. It is also the Wuhan Flu.  Get over it.

Keep in mind, William Shakespeare famously wrote, “A rose by any other name is still a rose.”  But I digress.

Nancy Pelosi look-alike

Since late 2019 the Democratically-controlled Congress has been fixated on impeaching President Donald J. Trump, to no avail.  After 3 ½ years, it was learned that his attackers had misrepresented the truth and facts that led to this nation-destroying exercise.

It didn’t matter that in January 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic was in full swing and spreading like a wildfire across the globe.  President Trump needed to be taught a sound lesson that he should leave the proverbial Swamp in Washington, D.C., alone.

He quit playing this stupid and dangerous game some two years ago, only irritating congressional has-beens and never weres, such as Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, and Nancy Pelosi.  If you didn’t know what an apoplectic fit was, it became abundantly visible when their impeachment efforts failed.

But by that time, COVID-19 had already spread dangerously close to American allied nations, and teetered on the cusp of entering America itself.

President Trump’s pleas to stop travelers from China and other select parts of Asia were met with charges of racism and xenophobia, all fabrications to further muddy the name and reputation of a professional businessman, as opposed to a professional politician like most of the Congress and Senate.

But by the time this possibly deadly affliction reached our shores, the obstructionist Democrats began shouting President Trump was not doing enough.  It is at this time you should re-read the previous paragraph to see where the blame needs to be placed.

Fast forward to the beginning of April – and a time when there are 140,000 cases of COVID-19 identified.  At this same time, there are about 3,000 deaths from this virus, with most of those being elderly and/or already sickly.

People immediately panicked because the disingenuous mainstream media began promoting the rapidly dwindling supplies of toilet paper, paper towels, and bottled water.  All this is a mystery to me and many others who are apparently hoarding these products for some unknown reason.

In any case, 106,000 American deaths represent a genuine tragedy, more so because the killer is invisible and mostly undetectable until it is too late realize a person is a carrier or infected.

Most people have begun to fear contraction of COVID-19, and the possible associated illness and death – neither of which is a given.  Yet the masses remain hysterical about needlessly dying from something seemingly innocuous as an invisible airborne virus.

So in an exercise of comparison, I checked the internet for another crisis of monumental proportions, this one, however, appears to be less dire.

Although there are countless Americans who are literally scared to death about contracting this corona virus very few are concerned over the 876,000 abortions performed in 2018 in the United States.  That means there were 876,000 deaths in our country that could have been prevented, too.

In any case, the fake news items and overdramatic, whiney reports do our nation and its survival no good.  And placing blame where there is no blame to be placed creates havoc where none should exist.

Bottom line:  Not one of the previous 44 American presidents foresaw this, or any other biological pandemic on the horizon so, to trying to pin this disaster on President Trump goes way beyond smarmy, closely approaching sycophantic.

But then that’s why Donald J. Trump was elected President in the first place, and will be re-elected in November.