Mitch & Me

Dear Senator,
Really?    Did the President of the United States of America really attack that brave, determined child?  That fearless girl?  Seriously?  Greta?  That Greta?  Really, really.
Here is yet another cartoon-villain moment.  I can see "Snidely Whiplash" rubbing his hands together with evil glee.

I mean just look this kid! She positively glows with intrinsic purpose, goodness and sincerity.  Put some armor on her and she'd be Joan of Arc!  Bad optics for the POTUS, another example of an "Ugly American" we didn't need.  Average response to this pettiness?  "Jealous much?"

We already owe the world an apology and a cookie. What we need is a hero.  An American hero.  A man of few words and gravitas who doesn't avoid military service with a lame excuse or bully a hopeful, fearless child!  Do you know any taciturn, Southern gentlemen with an "Aw, shucks!" quality that screams "America"?  Do you know anyone like that?

You could stop the inevitable disaster that's about befall us.  Make no mistake, something is coming, you know it, I know it too. Whatever it is, it's going to be bad! Keep some space for yourself, you'll need it.  Since brain surgery, I get ideas and this one involves you!   All you'd have to do is the right thing.  You'll know what it is and what it isn't.  You are in a unique position:  people believe you and you could bring us all together.  I know this sounds really risky but by rejecting hate and suppression and choosing truth and lawfulness you could make us truly great, something to strive for.around the world.

I initially thought #45 was just an annoying bad joke I would have to tolerate for four years.  Now he has proven himself far more destructive and just yuckier than I could have ever imagined.

You could make the iron grey fog that's clouding  our country lift and bring out the sun and the truth.

This is your Save-the-World Moment:

When future students Google you, what will they see?

Nobel Prize Winner and World Saver or Trump Sycophant?

I believe you'll make the right choice.  At the right time.

I'll be hoping (c'mon, it's Christmas, you have to do the right thing) and watching (I mean, what else can I do?).  Besides, if you get too close to the POTUS (shudder) I'll keep bugging you (hello, I'm an invalid, why not pester you?) until you stop it.

Trump IS The "Clear and Present Danger" - It's Time to Be Americans

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Joshua Tree National Park

One of the casualties of the pointless and very expensive Trump Government Shutdown was our National Parks Service - the attendants weren't at Joshua Tree.  As a result, 4-wheel tracks led to holes where the fragile plants had lived for hundreds of years.  Hundreds of plants were stolen and killed.  It will take at least 300 years to regrow the rare trees.  Nobody for several generations will see the descendants of the dead joshua trees.

Last week I was consumed with fear that  airborne loved ones might crash because of mistakes made by overworked air traffic controllers who weren't being paid..  Then The Cartoon President met  the impassive Ms. Pelosi and the she said "no" consequently the longest government shutdown in American history was on.  After Hurricane Katrina, Kanye West famously remarked "George Bush doesn't care about black people".  After close observation and lengthy consideration I have concluded that Donald Trump doesn't care about any people.

When Trump was inaugurated I thought he would be like an irritating cold; tedious, unpleasant, but eventually it goes away.  (Okay, a really long cold).  I thought Trump was a clown, a petulant brat; unbright, uninformed, uninspired and uninspiring.  The first two years of  his presidency have been so much worse than I imagined.  The last two years have been a daily deluge of terrible headlines, every day is crammed with breaking news - and it's always bad.  I watch all the networks, and reporters have a crazed and hunted look.  The in-studio anchors don't read The White House news as much as they appear to be fighting an urge to vomit it out.  Stories that would usually occupy a week of news since Trump are cut off to make room for newer and fresher disasters that seemingly reproduce and multiply, exponentially.

Freezing kids in  government prison camps, food banks for Federal Employees, bone saws and decapitated journalists and Russia, Russia, Russia, I'm exhausted!  I didn't survive brain cancer just to be blown out of the sky or poisoned or die from something really stupid (gulag in Siberia?).   I have a purpose.  I don't care about politics.  I do, however, care greatly for people and this planet.  Trump isn't just a clown, he's a dangerous clown.  He's one of those small, fat, fast, webless spiders that race across my walls.

I almost died.  I've seen Death, it passed me - for now. I am a student of history and a dark tourist.  I read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" when I was 12.  You know what Hitler said about the Germans, his people when Germany was losing WWII?  Hitler said it was Germany's fault and they deserved whatever happened they deserved death.   Spoiled brat.    Who does that sound like?  The narcissism, the self-importance, the endless attacks, all the red flags are there!

I was waiting for Mueller's report.  I say was because we can't wait any longer.  Every day that goes by Trump destroys us more in new and inventive ways.

There is still only one question that means keeping an elected official or a toothbrush - does it work?  Trump does not work for me, for you or anyone but D.J. Trump - ask him.  Worse, though, he answers my final question, the one that goes to the bone:  Is it Cancer?  Sadly, I  think we all know the answer.  President Trump is a cancer on our country.  The good news is I know some really good cancer. surgeons.

It's All in the Optics...

Hello Fellow Travelers!

SF Skyline - 12/25/18

The PS snapped this from Treasure Island.  He called it "sucker weather", no fog.  San Francisco  is rarely so clear. Such an amazing (albeit rare) view has lured people from all over the world, for generations - people still move to the Bay believing, hoping for the impossible (or at least highly unusual) - a clear, beautiful outline of the SF skyline.  The PS could not resist "decorating" the palm tree (A la Corona) but everything else was clearly visible.  It was stunning - I felt like I was inside of a holiday snow globe.  I've been to the "City" on warm nights in October when you didn't need long sleeves!  The reality; cloudiness, chilliness and churning, rolling, daily fog is meaningless.  The memory of one clear, magical evening will always be how I think of SF.

Recently, I discovered another visual "trick".  One of my wheelchairs (I have 2 - one for indoors and one for "The Street".)was looking a little ratty.  I called my new insurance carrier to order a replacement.  I submitted a referral, yadi, yadi ya.  Much, much, later it was determined I was not covered for a stupid wheelchair.  I have a hate/really hate relationship with ambulatory seating. The
wheelchair-bound is easily identifiable and just as easily dismissed.  When you are in a WC, you lose identity, strength and independence.  And you have to maintain the stupid thing, as the drunken Mrs. Ross on "Seinfeld" complained, "If you come into the house, the least you can do is keep your wheels clean!"  When you're  actually in the contraption you perceive humanity at butt-level.  Every event has just become a sea of backsides.  The one optical advantage a wheelchair has is at a protest.  Protesters in wheelchairs have gravitas -if someone is protesting in a wheelchair they must be serious, my ears prick up, I pay a little more attention, any handicapped person motivated enough in a frigging wheelchair must be pretty upset about something and deserves attention.

I've accepted most of the life changes that brain trauma survivors manage 24/7 but I've never adapted to using a wheelchair.  I'm tall, I've been labelled  a "fall risk" (I suppose it's because I have further to crash),  I'm a stander not a sitter; sitting is safer (when I fall over I'm closer to the ground) but is fundamentally unnatural to me.  The other day my PS showed me something my sister-in-law mailed him.  It was a great photo of my brother-in-law and his father, together.  Father and son looked healthy and happy.  What made the picture so clever and funny was a different POV told a very different story.  The upper half of the picture was a holiday card but pulling back the lens revealed the walkers they were using. My sister-in-law knows a well-composed photo op - I knew that.  What I did not fully appreciate was the visual impact of appearance on the brain.

Maybe I could skip the hated prison-on-wheels altogether.  Sitting is boring, dehumanizing and frustrating.  Wheelchairs are heavy, clumsy and inconvenient and I'd rather set $200+ on fire than buy one but standing is something I can get behind!  Thank you P & F!