Again it's been a long time

Once again, I am both shocked by and all too aware of how long it’s been since I last wrote here. Nearly three months. Then, it was summer, a bit slower. The kids were away, music was everywhere.

Now, Oliver is a high school freshman running cross country, thinking about Homecoming, and immersed in the maker space he’s built in our basement and in the acting conservatory to which he was accepted. Jack is a high school senior applying to college, struggling with AP BC Calculus, invested in robotics and squash, and just over a two-week bout with pneumonia. I do NOT recommend pneumonia for any high school senior in the midst of first semester and the college application process. It wasn’t helpful or fun and he’s still “paying” for it.

Just yesterday, I was prescribed antibiotics for what is either shitty bronchitis or pneumonia, and I feel truly terrible. Last month I was in an awful wreck (am fine) so we’re now also car shopping amidst all the mayhem of life. Obviously a car is just a thing, but the event itself was enormously upsetting and could have been deathly, and this not having a car for the last five weeks is just a regular reminder of all that.

I admit to feeling great despair right now, about the world and our collective future. There are so many bad actors on the global stage and here at home, so much hatred and bloodshed and what too often feels like gleeful destruction. In times like these I realize anew just how naive I am in some ways. I truly do not understand such maniacal desires for power and wealth. I don’t understand Putin and Xi, Orban and people like Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy. Trump is clearly trying to stay out of jail; his lunacy and desperation are, in that sense, “understandable.” But my god, just shut up, go away, and take some responsibility, man. Your behavior is so widely damaging. What kind of a person really cares not about burning an entire country to the ground for their own personal gain? I know, naive. But I don’t understand.

And don’t get me started on all who enable such malicious behavior. As if the strongmen ever actually take care of the people they use in their ascendancies. LMAO when not crying.

In WV, I see place after place in utter decrepitude. The poverty breaks my heart. But the trump flags flying in front of so many of those homes vex me. trump wouldn’t deign to shake hands with these folks much less do anything to actually help them. Almost no one in the GOP would. Our collective civic education is in such tatters. Truly, I am just speechless about so much of the lies that circulate as gospel. Recently, on NextDoor in our WV area, a poster was freaking out about “the protests in MAJOR [his caps] cities near Martinsburg and how he was ready to defend his family if it comes to it.” Four different people responded with “what are you talking about?” notes, and ultimately he deleted the post. But there are millions of people with guns out there ready to “defend” their families (read: kill scary “others”) based on falsehoods and hate that is rooted in those lies. It’s terrifying, to be honest. And deeply upsetting.

Last night, I took a large amount of Advil, donned a N95, and met Mom and Dad at an event with Heather Cox Richardson and Jane Mayer. If y’all aren’t familiar with them, Heather is an American History professor at Boston College and a prolific writer who, maybe 4 years ago, started writing Letter from an American, a newsletter-cum-record of the US and our democracy during the trump era. Jane is a New Yorker investigative journalist, one of the very best, who is not only the chief Washington correspondent but also an expert on dark money in American politics.

One of the most interesting parts of their discussion focused on trump followers and the behavior of those who follow and love strongmen. In short, once people descend down the rabbit hole of rabid followership, the worse the authoritarian behaves, the stronger their fealty to him. We see this, of course, daily with cheeto and his minions which makes the fact of his likely GOP presidential nomination all the more worrisome. He must not win. If he does, he will never leave, and his cult followers will feel both validated and empowered, even more than they already do.

Meanwhile, Israel. As I’m sure you are, I am horrified to near speechlessness about the brutality of Hamas’s invasion. Again with my despair about humanity and its future. This thread is one of the best and most educational I’ve read, and I encourage you to all spend time with it. I would also suggest reading the response by Tal Morgenstern who argues thoughtfully with some of Saul’s writing and then Saul’s response to Morgenstern.

Regarding all of the above, what the world too often lacks, in addition to civic education, are critical thinking as well as patience and respect for complexity and nuance. So little is black or white, and no one benefits from snap judgments that are rooted in soundbites rather than understanding of what are often decades- and centures-old conflicts. It is really fucking hard to get good information these days. It takes way more effort than most people have time or the inclination for.

If you can, please support excellent journalism and the dissemination of it. Good journalism costs a LOT! Personally, I find The Atlantic, The New Yorker, C-SPAN, ProPublica, Reuters, and Associated Press to be excellent. I’ve also read Haaretz a lot since the weekend and find it very thoughtful. Generally, I also very much appreciate NPR and BBC.