Heil, RNC

Imagine Hitler, his left arm around a Jew, his Nazi salute arm stretched comfortably around a newly married gay couple. Eva smiles coyly nearby, in her "hers" uniform. 

RNC, night two. A black ex-con gets a pardon, and five brown people get to bypass the cages and become citizens of a country whose passports are as good as toilet paper. I assume their ballots will be Fedex-ed. 

Yes, I watched, and yes, I woke up this morning with a nightmare hangover, though I cannot remember any dreams. Oddly, I only remember hearing one speech. Radical left. Socialists. Hunter Biden. Billions in taxes. China virus. God. God. God. And, of course, my father. Not to be confused with God. I could be wrong. 

Other than a sentimental reminiscence about the ravages of a pandemic from Larry Kudlow (is he back on coke?), there was no mention of the almost 200 thousand dead. No mention of the latest police atrocity in Kenosha. A lot of emphasis on the carnage from which we need to save the country, though that carnage (correct me if I'm wrong) seems to have occurred under 45's watch. 

I am terrified, frankly. In 2016 the excuse was "trying something new." So now what? As unfathomable as it is, this shit might work, again, even though the last three years, eight months has seemed like a lifetime, anything but "new." A president, backed by a silent party and a screaming cast of buffoons, is openly violating actual statutes and longstanding norms and basic government ethics, and the media is airing it in real time and giving it oxygen. Shame on me for watching, but curiosity got the best of me. 

The House is investigating. Whoop-de-doo. Most of the people I know are horrified, wringing their hands, shaking their heads. Two more nights of this horror flick to come, and then the real shit starts to fly. And who knows what Bill Barr (who reminds me of a poop emoji) is cooking up for October? 

We live in a country where freedom of religion and freedom of speech and "law and order" have asterisks. What would Republicans do? Dems, figure it out. 

It is What it Is

 I'm as much of a Michelle Obama admirer as anybody -- you might even call me a wannabe. Damn I wish I could've written that book, married that guy, had that soapbox. My reaction to her keynote speech last night? What she said. 

What we've all been saying, for four years, at least within the confines of what my daughter refers to as my "bublé." That he's unqualified. That he has soiled the office and our country. That we are better, but that this time around we need to work harder at it. 

I feel like a bit of an outsider, as unexcited as I was about Michelle's speech, as inspiring and true and articulate and from the heart as it was. I certainly hope that it maybe, got to a few folks outside my bublé, folks who hate him but might indeed settle into powerlessness and resignation. It is what it is. 

It was great shade, Michelle repeating his use of a once meaningless phrase that acquired a whole new heap of meaning when attached to over 160,000 deaths. But the point for us, going forward, is that it is what it never should have been, and it is going to be the opposite of what it is now. It had better be. 

Which was exactly my takeaway from night one of the Democratic Convention. I already know what Michelle Obama thinks, and that I -- and most people I associate with -- agree wholeheartedly. What I don't know is how many Republicans will come out and speak, and how loudly they will speak, and to whom. What I don't know is whether Bernie's steadfast followers heard -- or will heed -- his message, powerful and timely as it may be, this time around. What I don't know is whether, despite all our best efforts and intentions, corruption and cheating and in-your-face lawlessness will again win out. Whether we will settle for the promise to do no further harm from a postmaster general who knows he has to face Katie Porter next week. Whether  the Cowards (formerly known as Republicans in the Senate) will be able to convince people that the Intel Report finding Russian collusion with the Trump campaign actually found no collusion with the Trump campaign. Whether Bill Barr will abandon all pretense of ethics and deliver his teased October surprise. And whether the news media will continue to air uninterrupted lies, as if they are news. 

It is what it is, and it sucks. Bigly. The glossy production was all good, but the real work begins now. 

M.V.P. IT HAD TO BE YOU!

She's too pretty.

That's what somebody said to me back in the day, long before we knew how the Democratic primary would unfold. Had I thought the man saying it was sexist, I might have been offended, but I sort of got what he was saying. I've never heard anybody complain about a president being too handsome -- certainly not the current one -- but this is our culture. Handsome, good. Pretty, bad.  What is charismatic in a man is threatening in a woman, not just in the highest office in the land.

Well, things have certainly evolved since then. "Too pretty" has been replaced by "too ambitious." I admit I've had reservations about Kamala Harris, at least as a VP pick, but mostly because I think of her as a prosecutor, and I thought her talents could be better used elsewhere. I've watched in awe as she skewered the somehow un-skewerable powerful men who have come before her in the Senate. I soured on her during the campaign, but I soured on everybody during the campaign, particularly the ones who dared to expose any fissures in the party. Yes, my fear of another four years of hell is that great. 

Campaigns are like dating, sort of. People are much more likable when they're not angling for something. Politicians are always angling, but campaigns bring out angling on steroids. Still, even after Kamala threw her support to Joe, I liked her again but I had my reservations, thought she'd be far more useful as attorney general. With all the qualified woman in the "veepstakes," I thought there were plenty of fine alternatives. 

And then today arrived. And I heard today would be the day. And I took under advisement all the imminent lines of attack against all the others -- whether justified or not -- and I had my Kamala epiphany. Only moments before the news of the pick broke, I realized it had to be Kamala. She was the one and only right pick, the one who could excite people and check all the boxes and, perhaps most importantly, go on to skewer Pence in a debate and out-Teflon Teflon Don. He will throw all kinds of shit at her, and I am confident it will go splat, right back in his face. 

Shortly after the announcement, my friend texted to tell me she had opened a bottle of champagne and was toasting Kamala. Coincidentally, I had done the same. The news was more than a relief. It was cause for celebration. It was exciting. It gave me hope -- a thing in short supply these days. It gave me a glimmer of real light at the end of what has seemed like an endless dark tunnel. 

Yes, she is pretty. I admit it, I want my hair to look just like hers. Yes, she is ambitious. Duh. And she is smart, and she is tough, and she has proven that she can wipe the floor with some of the biggest shit-heads this administration has brought to bear on our country. And hopefully Maya Rudolph will revive her sultry Kamala on SNL. 

Here's to you Madame future Vice President, and to you, Mr. past Vice President, for making such a wise choice. Let's get this done.

Back to Earth

By the time I was fifteen years old, splashdowns had become a "thing." Maybe we'd hear about it, maybe we'd catch the the grainy and twitchy live footage on television. Manned space travel is about as old as I am; neither of us has ever known a world without the other. One of us never ceases to amaze, and I'm pretty sure it's not I.

Fast forward to the summer of 2020, when life on earth has become surreal, particularly in America, that hotbed of ingenuity that has somehow morphed into a cautionary tale of chaos born of complacency, a country at war with itself.  But splashdowns have come out of a decades long hiatus, and they could not have come at a better time. 

I flipped on the television and surfed through the channels, hoping for a little respite from handwringing pundits mulling over the latest unprecedented presidential outrages. Enter "SpaceX Dragon." I was transfixed. Transported, really, back to my childhood, watching with my father as the Dragon's precursors slipped out of the clouds and splashed down with precision, wondering each time how that was possible. I could imagine, back then, that a man (or woman) would walk on the moon, but I don't think I could have imagined what walking on earth would be like, in 2020. 

I watched as the capsule swayed beneath its four giant parachutes, seemingly suspended in place while it plunged with unimaginable speed toward the Gulf of Mexico. I could see the opaque haze of a hurricane staying fortuitously at bay in the distance. I watched as the rescue craft floated precariously close to the landing spot, thinking this was the mother of all trust exercises. I realized that, my own ambivalence about life on earth these days aside, the joy of return must have been unequivocal. I imagine these astronauts, like those before them, have the right stuff, the stuff they will need to cope with our earthly problems.