We are a Nation in crisis. There\u2019s lots of verbiage that often precedes that: existential, Constitutional, generational, apocryphal, and so on and so forth. As an \u201cessayist\u201d (I really don\u2019t like the term \u201cblogger\u201d, and I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve earned the title of \u201cauthor\u201d or \u201cwriter\u201d), it\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of constantly \u201cyelling from the mountaintop\u201d. It\u2019s not that warning the world is wrong. But, like the tornado sirens that go off every week, they lose their alarm function. God help us if a tornado decides to strike at noon!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Which reminds me:\u00a0\u00a0we almost always did our school fire drills in the afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0That way, a lot of our students were already gone for the day, and the weather was warmer. We seldom had fire drills in the morning, or before school started, or, heaven help us, at lunch.\u00a0\u00a0Fires, like drills, had better be convenient!!\u00a0\u00a0And we won\u2019t talk about the Dean of Students (me) who watched the TV stations call off the Tornado Warnings, and sent kids out to get on the buses.\u00a0\u00a0Funny, with all of those buses running, you can\u2019t hear the wailing sirens just a few miles away!!!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of my readers (not often in agreement) called my recent effort, \u201cjust another of Marty\u2019s doom and gloom\u201d essays. And while his analysis and mine seldom agree, there is a legitimate point. It\u2019s probably time to refrain from yelling for a bit, otherwise I become just another part of the background noise; a tornado siren at noon on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So here\u2019s some good news. The marooned astronauts finally made it back to earth. Their \u201cTwo hour tour\u201d (remember Gilligan\u2019s Island?) went from ten days to ten months. The news is full of retraining their balance mechanisms, and the fact that their eyeballs reshaped because of the lack of gravity. But it\u2019s all said in fun. The world (all sides) is happy their home, back on earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was humorous to hear the media try to avoid naming their actual landing place. The geographic identifier was: off the coast of Florida, or, in the warm waters off the coast, or the friendly waters where they were welcomed by dolphins and the Space X recovery team. No one dared say that they dropped into the GULF OF MEXICO (though CNN and probably Fox used the current, politically correct alternative choice \u2013 the newly minted Gulf of America). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, (this is political) I\u2019m enjoying my Canadian friends reaction to the current American regime. Canada is considered a friendly place of cold winters, cold beer, and flannel-plaid shirts And there are the summers of almost endless daylight (and interminable black fly season \u2013 May through July!!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is a fighting spirit in Canadians.\u00a0\u00a0After all, their national sport is hockey.\u00a0\u00a0Fights in any other sport means ejection from the contest, fines and suspensions. In hockey it\u2019s a couple of minutes of \u201ctime out\u201d, like a five-year old, then back on the ice.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that Canadians are willing to match the US, tariff for tariff, and Crown Royal (it all comes from Canada) against Kentucky Bourbon.\u00a0\u00a0Canadians are saying everything that 48% of Americans want to say \u2013 but won\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember a few years ago when the folks really worried about the environment, and the \u201cgreenies\u201d, were pushing electric cars. Those vehicles were a solution to the massive problem of internal combustion engines, filling the sky with pollution and particularly carbon dioxide. And the wealthier of the \u201cgreenies\u201d put their money where their mouth was, and bought an electric car, usually, the \u201ctop of the line\u201d, a Tesla. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the owner, founder, chief operating officer and head bottle washer of Tesla decided that his bromance with Barack Obama and Joe Biden was over. It really was all about a Biden invitation to the White House. Biden\u2019s Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, called a summit of car manufacturers to talk about reducing pollution. For what seems like an obvious reason, he didn\u2019t invite Musk \u2013 the Tesla didn\u2019t create air pollution. But little Elon got all hurt and \u201csalty\u201d because he wasn\u2019t invited to lord his car over the others. Soon, he was backing Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tesla owners could handle Elon backing Trump, but they are struggling to stomach his actions after Trump took office. After all, many of them were buying Tesla\u2019s because of their green views about the environment, and probably have other more \u201cprogressive\u201d ideas as well. And here was Musk, the \u201cpoint man\u201d for reversing the progressive gains of the entire past century!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tesla sales have crashed (almost as badly as their self-driving cars or the big Space-X rockets). Tesla dealership are the ideal location for protests against Trump and Musk. And some \u201cactivists\u201d have taken to burning Tesla\u2019s on the lots. Now I don\u2019t advocate that kind of violence. Putting Tesla fires out is a tricky deal for our First Responders, what with the batteries and all. But I do understand the sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump tried to intervene, turning the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom.\u00a0\u00a0I was waiting for him to turn to the cameras and say, \u201cWe\u2019re Dealing!!!!\u201d (If you\u2019re from Central Ohio, you know.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone else: it\u2019s the catch-phrase of the most successful car dealer in the area).\u00a0\u00a0And Attorney General Pam Bondi has declared the burning Teslas is an act of \u201cdomestic terrorism\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s kind of funny, until you realize that she\u2019s the chief law enforcement officer for the United States.\u00a0\u00a0And I\u2019m sure FBI Director Kash Patel will volunteer from Las Vegas to open the investigation.\u00a0\u00a0You can bet on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, finally, all of the Kennedy Assassination files have been released.\u00a0\u00a080,000 pages of unredacted information hit the public this week, and we were all poised to finally know what happened.\u00a0\u00a0Were their shooters on the grassy knoll?\u00a0\u00a0Did the magic bullet really turn \u201cdown and to the left\u201d after exiting Kennedy\u2019s neck?\u00a0\u00a0Was Lee Harvey Oswald a KGB operative, a Cuban operative, a CIA operative, a Chicago Mafia operative; or really just a kook?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m waiting.\u00a0\u00a0Dozens of news agencies and probably thousands of conspiracy theorists are digging through the volumes of information.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s been three days \u2013 and no one has any new answers.\u00a0\u00a0We are back to the existential question of our lifetime:\u00a0\u00a0was the Warren Commission really on the up and up?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Was Oswald a lone assassin, despite all of the rumors and speculation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the answer is:\u00a0\u00a0nothing new here.\u00a0\u00a0It’s just another distraction, while all of the \u201cbad\u201d stuff goes on, and on, and on\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, that\u2019s my \u201cHappy News\u201d for this week.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll head back to the mountain top soon enough!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"