“It doesn’t matter that the Army no longer needs or wants the armory, we must keep it open to support the jobs. Jobs equal votes.”
“What the Hell? He voted to subsidize tobacco growers? How can that be, we all live in Arizona?”
“Oh that. We needed to support North Carolina tobacco growers, or their congressmen won’t vote to support our ditch from the Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson to sell more property.”
I was a young Washington staffer, when I heard such things, they had all been my bosses, all prominent Presidential candidates and Democrats. Yes, it isn’t just Republicans that lack the courage to lead.
Political leaders don’t often stay well-grounded citizen servants. Republicans and Democrats become dizzy under the relentless ladling of self-serving partisan slop that fertilizes big heads.
An 18th century Scottish Historian argued that America’s freedom fighters were anchored in courage and if successful, would find liberty and great abundance, but abundance would lead to selfishness, then a complacency that would return them to bondage.
I spent 33 years locked in a promise I made Presidents Ford and Carter. I would not involve myself in partisan politics while running the organization we had begun.
Once retired, I still would not involve in political discussions. That isn’t to say I had nothing to say, it is just after those 33 years of struggling to help people deal with the facts, I am no longer interested in what anyone else thinks.
From where I have stood, no one thinks. Like eating a Big Mack to satisfy their hunger, people have become accustomed to tunning into some political preacher who says what satisfies and then mimics them with “lock box” conviction.
When politics becomes the conversation, I have become a joke. “Mention politics,” they say, “if you want to watch Kimball walk out of the room.”
If I am stuck, as the other day, with a devoted Christian, Trump supporter and close friend, who thought him God’s tool to make things wrong, right again, I simply agree.
Yes, Jesus was selfless, thoughtful, kind, forgiving with endless compassion for the suffering, downtrodden and all those without hope. Trump, his doppelganger – very difficult to see much difference.
Daily, millions of our fellow citizens enter that condition.
As the absurdity of supporting this quasar of toddler self-indulgent nonsense begins to roost in bank accounts, a day of clarity presents itself.
It isn’t that right wing media begins to crack, or even Congressional fanaticos suddenly skulking for self-preservation, it is The People, whose roots lock back in and the human desire for justice and fair play is renourished.
I was six when I first worried about death. An older brother mentioned we only live into our 60s. It was simple arithmetic – I had only 9 of my life spans left.
So it began, a lifelong, almost daily uneasiness about the time left.
When I was six, I sensed no pre-me, I had been my forever, and time was…well if it moved at all, was sap slow. A school year lasted forever, and the next Christmas was an eternity away.
This is not to say early life was boring, just the opposite. So, sodden I was after that first breath (whatever that freakish experience must have been) with new, never had or imagined intimacies with this thing or that, each one seeming eons from those had just a few moments ago.
The freshly pealed, raw experiences of life began on some supersonic conveyor belt of WOWs.
But as life progresses the belt offers fewer, fresh WOWs and increasing chains of “been there, done that,” repetitions.
As I age, the belt’s “been there, done that,” offerings increase, fatigue sets in and the belt of time speeds up as if to find anything new.
Days become weeks, then months and suddenly another year flashes by.
When as old as me, that first wonderous breath you took so very long ago has been repeated 650 million times and you are good to go.
Yes, he wants to end democracy, and YES, his being elected is a compelling argument to do so, but look at who might replace him:
JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kristi Noem, etc. all sycophants, all MAGA, all who either once opposed him or have suckled on the tit of obedience from birth.
Perhaps more important isn’t the MAGA party but the media powers with enormous followings, who will attempt to chisel a new Trump out of his droppings:
FOX, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Laura Lommer, Kevin Roberts, Laura Trump etc.
Kill Trump and you will have crucified him in the eyes of his zealots. Let him live into his onsetting incapacity and his disciples will devour each other.
Went to Alice’s funeral yesterday, a remarkable woman. She retired after 22 years as a captain in the Airforce and then committed the rest of her life fighting for world peace.
At her end, dozens said goodbye with the sweetest stories of her struggles to bring calm to an angry world.
Even Secretary of Defense Hegseth and President Trump celebrated her goodness by sending a military guard to send her off with volleys of rifle fire and a slow dramatic folding of the Stars and Stripes.
Which they had presented to Alice’s wife, Cara, from a grateful nation with these quiet words, “On behalf of the President of the United States.”
Over two years ago or almost one year after Putin invaded Ukraine, I wrote these blogged words in solution to the war, words that I hate as much now as I did when I wrote them:
“The West recognizes roughly 7% of Ukraine as Russian, including Crimea and the Russian-speaking areas of Donetsk and Luhansk — roughly the territory Russia claimed in 2014.
Ukraine, whose economy has crashed, gets to retain all of the territory they had prior to the 2022 invasion, gets peace, and the funds to rebuild, substantially but not solely provided by Russia.“
That is exactly where we head now, only after another 30,000 innocent non-combatant deaths.
It is not a brag, but a cracking volcanic blast at cowering, wimpy Presidents who can’t get off their knees when challenged by a country whose economic power is half that of California’s.
It is important to remember that the aged are going to forget. That may be why decaying Presidents and Congressmen are endlessly flipping and then flopping on the opposite side of their former selves.
That will be my excuse for letting this all happen.
A mushroom lives and dies never knowing its own colossal source. Like us, some are nourishing, others poisonous and a few mind-blowing, but neither imagine the extraordinary apparatus that anchors their existence
For the mushroom it can be a fungus that weighs tons, a billion times larger than themselves, living on as the oldest organism on earth.
For us? Well, none know. Like the mushroom, we bloom and are driven to think we are it, our bodies carry all that we know, can know, and think there is. Only with consciousness, we are compelled to conjure hope in one simplistic cult driven God after another.
While the truth might find our bodies expendable, but our essence eternal, only defused upon death, mixed and redistributed to make bits of us present in an infinite number of new existences just as oblivious of their author as we are today.
I have no faith in what I write here. It just seems more real than all the poppycock fairy tales religions tempt me with.
They were born inflicted with the effects of “The War to End All Wars”, in adolescence endured The Great Depression, then in adulthood crushed the tyranny of a megalomaniac on path to conquer the world, shamed Soviet tyranny, blazed a path to equality for all in Civil Rights, put a man on the moon, and their children in schools where teachers were the boss while making us the envy of the world.
The Greatest now gone, the pendulum swung to us, a new generation that cuddles suppression, trashes science, education and truth, in an angry, nonsensical tirade where the pain for all has only just begun!
Corrupting the Justice Department to end those opposing him?
Appointing toadies, suckling on the poison of power?
Cuddling with the man’s most despicable dictators?
CERTIANLY NOT WHEN HE SUGGESTS:
We ingest disinfectants to manage what ails us.
That it’s OK to grab someone’s genitals.
That “we could use a big fat dose of global warming.”
That his pennis is long and beautiful.
That breast feeding babies is “disgusting.”
That conviction of sexual abuse is abuse.
IT ISN’T THE PRESIDENT WHO IS ANTI-PROGRESS, SCIENCE, EDUCATION DEMOCRACY AND DECENCY THAT IS YOUR ENEMY, IT IS THAT FAMILY MEMBER OR NEIGHBOR THAT MONOTONOUSLY PARDON THEMSELVES WITH THE WORDS, “OH, I DON’T LIKE EVERYTHIG HE DOES!”
Billionaire Elon Musk is not to blame for the firings of thousands of federal workers, including veterans (without bone spur excuses) he privately tells Republicans. It is the heads of federal agencies who are to blame, he claims.
Why? Well because Putin’s opponents are murdered, opposition is arrested and frozen in Siberia, minority rights squashed, foreign territory forcefully annexed, brutal dictators slaughtering thousands of their own citizens are enabled…
In 2023, when American’s still fought for the free, 64% thought this newfound “friend” an enemy, now only 34% do, while 50% want Ukraine to stop fighting and let Russia have the territory, they’ve massacred tens-of-thousands to obtain.
When those betraying that 249-year-old, uniquely American cause of freedom are asked, why? They simply mimic their leader who said, “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too.”
A legion of inexperienced juvenile toadies now locked in place at the head of your Defense, Homeland Security, Education, Trade, Office of Management and Budget, Energy, Labor, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, FBI, Health and Human Services, Secretary of State, CIA, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Environmental Protection Agency.
All parasites suckling on the poisonous tit of a megalomaniac.
All happening, while your protection from Inspector Generals, whistle-blowers and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are deceased.
You are on your own. Caveat Emptor, in all things – good luck!
On this day in 1939 twenty thousand American Nazis gathered at Madison Square Garden in front of a giant image of George Washington and their slogan Free America.
Wake me up in 20 years when it is all over, the wicked are dead and I can know that somehow democracy pulled through.
List all the human advances you can, for all human time up to 1776.
It was 229 years ago that Thomas Jefferson wrote “All men are created equal…” and enterprise by the free was unleashed on a global scale. With little thought, there is not a one of us that would not marvel at what came of it.
Compare your list of what came under every imaginable despot those first 250,000 years of human existence, with what you can list the last 000.01% of it. Any comparative list would make those first 250,000 years seem devoid of advance in either human comfort, health, convenience, or nourishment. Almost regardless of your circumstance, your life today is with benefits and comforts beyond the imaginations of any ruler in history claiming to be above the law. This relationship between freedom and despotism is no coincidence.
Pride in our forebearers should ooze from every American pore while the return of a despotism boil everyone’s blood.
I’m going to doze off now, but with a hacksaw, on the chance I wake up in a prison.
An alien, never having experienced earth as you know it, walked into our world out of a Brazilian jungle wearing only a loin cloth and carrying some wood.
He took a look at some of our magic – lighters, cell phones and such, turned around and walked right back into the jungle to be seen no more.
America represented stability in the world, because our institutions were stable, our rule of law was stable, and our separation of powers was able to mute extremists. I believe that is how America provided the safest haven for secure investment and fertile ground for prosperity.
Now with our institutions, the rule of law, the separation of powers being dismantled and a tariff wars kicker, I wonder if the coming pain will root in time for a sleepy self-governing people, charged with running this show, to wake up and save their primacy?
Butchy saw it first, tucked neatly behind the bar’s sink, a $10 bill. It was early December, and I knew the tradition. Each Christmas my grandfather, who couldn’t travel and join us for Christmas sent $10 to buy our Christmas tree. Mom tucked it behind the bar until it was time to make the big buy. My best friends, Butchy and Stevie got so excited with the treasure, I got excited too. Treated as treasure found, it was instantly seen as free money.
YEAH! That’s right Butchy, you found BIG MONEY!” Ten dollars in the 50s, is about as rich as three kids can get.
Negotiations started immediately:
Me — “You found it Butchy, but it is my house, my sink, so it is my $10.”
Butchy — “OK! Split it”.
Stevie- “That’s not fair, what about me, I was here too.”
Me — “What are you talking about, you didn’t find it, it isn’t your house. You don’t get anything”
Stevie — “That’s not right, let’s ask your mother.”
Stevie, who would become a good lawyer, always had a knack for ending an argument with just the right words.
On the way to the Five & Dime the discussion was about toys, a new football, a bunch of trading cards with gum, or . . . “I got it,” I said, “the toy to beat all toys. We have enough money here to buy a Zippo cigarette lighter.” The idea was an immediate hit, not because we smoked, at least not yet, but because we were fascinated with that parental no-no – FIRE.
Just smart enough to know that a store might balk at selling three kids lighters, we devised a brilliant and as it turns out successful plan.
Since Stevie’s handwriting was clearly at a crude stage and I could barely read, let alone write, Butchy got the honors. As neatly as he could, which was pretty darn good as I recall, he wrote out: “I hav givn Kimmy $10 to by three liters — (signed) Mrs. Kimball.”
The clerk took a second look but didn’t seem to mind selling us the lighters or that my mom was illiterate. So, with lighters in hand, off we ran toward the arroyo and into neighborhood history.
The arroyo, a dry four-foot-rut in the neighborhood landscape that had water in it maybe six days a year. It ran right by our house, sheathed in a thick forest of thirsty mesquite trees and tall baked brown grasses.
With all the life-molding first time experiences that would come that day, it wasn’t Mr. Franklin, looking out his window, who first saw the smoke billowing over the neighborhood, not the distant approaching sirens that converged on the scene, nor even the odd smacking sound my mother’s lips made when she heard it was me, that sticks in my mind. It was the speed at which a Zippo could turn solitude into Armageddon when it touches blades of dried grass in a breeze under a forest of parched trees.
I can’t remember what happened to Stevie or Butchy that day, but I would be put to death immediately. My mother, having struggled with this odd, and now clearly dangerous child for some years, cracked.
The fire was not what upset her, it was the “Thou shall not steal” stuff I would get it for. I got one good whack with my belt for every dollar we took.
But I got the best of it. Kids, once adults, are forever blaming their moms for imagined errors in their upbringing. The “welts” from the fire of ’56 would become my most effective weapon as I needled the screeching denials of a mother for the next half-century.
I thought I got the best of it. I got the $10, the lighters (she assumed the Fire Department had confiscated them — they had not), and my exaggerated stories about “bloody welts” from my (well-deserved) whipping, up until she wore with pride the “IT’S ALL MY FAULT” tee shirt I got her on her 70th birthday.
