I opened the New York Times today. No pictures of a guy in a red baseball cap golfing, no re-broadcast tweets, no Eric, no Donald J. Jr. … no Giuliani. Mike Pompeo has disappeared! No raucous rally photos! No effigy Democrats being burned… Not a word about Qanon. Kayleigh McEnany, gone. Lindsey Graham, quiet. No pictures of slack-jowl Mitch. (sorry, I slipped into the mode of the last four years for a second…)
‘…Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the
sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and
somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and
somewhere children shout,
but there is no joy in MUDVILLE — mighty
Casey has struck out!’
(Earnest Lawrence Thayer–Casey At The Bat)
Our long dark hour has passed. Now, we can get down to the other tragic dramas that have been playing in the background. The colour has almost returned. Maybe, it will be ok?
I am here, parked in my spot, enjoying an Everything Bagel and a cup of tea. Simon is still as gorgeous as ever, the young women are still kind, the tea is still too hot for drinking. The surface looks normal but remained so during this whole affair. Things may not be all good. In fact, I fear things are quite bad. That life is easier to endure, easier to enjoy without the boorish ex-president’s endless chatter is well on it’s way to being proven. It only took a few weeks for him to give up. Now, with a little air left in the room, a little air that hasn’t been consumed by The Donald, we have the petty bickering of Canada’s would-be rulers to deal with. It promises to be a lot easier, though they do share certain ideas with the foolish ones to our south.
How and why conservatism became a desperate position from which to angle, cheat, lie your way into government is for those who know things to discuss. I have my opinion but it is just opinion, not knowledge. I really should keep my mouth shut. I am dismayed that leadership, doing the right thing for the many, has drifted to the side. I am become cynical, more cynical than I have been.
Fueled by the machinations of the press, who have enormous self-interest to assuage, I lost trust. Donald sold newspapers, no question. In publicizing his every tantrum, his every filthy statement, the editorial boards are almost unethical as the actions of the man himself. Most of the tweets that were twitted would never have been on endless repeat had it not been for the needs of 24hour a day news platforms, had it not been for the struggling ‘legitimate’ press, had it not been for the trainwreck fascination. We couldn’t take our eyes away and were used by all of them.
Now, the hangover. There isn’t enough raw egg and clam juice for this. Not enough alka-seltzer. It won’t be a total nightmare, we do have some peace to look forward to with the disappearance of D and co. That alone will make the sobering up a lot easier but we still have some serious nausea on the horizon. Covid is gone rampant in the U.S. and not far behind here in Canada. There is, bluntly, no plan and no hope for ever catching up with the virus in those fifty states. A vaccine can’t appear soon enough. Here, we are marching toward who knows what? At long last, Jason Kinney has seen the light. It is probably too late for Alberta. His room is still spinning and his hangover yet on the horizon.
That folks have had enough of being separated, locked down is well apparent. A fellow blatantly advertised that his restaurant in Peel region was going to remain open. Hordes of folks, maskless, muscled past the gathered press and crowded in. The police eventually came to their senses and locked the place down. That’s bad. People have had enough. We don’t have common goals, community anymore. We have desperate self-interest. We need leaders who can bring us together, make us understand that it is in all of our best interests to make the attempt to slow this thing down a while. Those potential leaders who own the podium seem to have only their political futures in mind. Someone has to take initiative, make the hard choices, do the right thing. It won’t be pleasant but it has to be done and done with integrity, with one eye on the future and the other on the rights of all. What is best for all must be on the plate. Sadly, I doubt we are going to see anything like that.
So, the Donald hangover fades into a migraine headache of epic proportion. This is pretty ordinary. That is the way life and living are. We come to the mountaintop and our first view is of a higher mountain in the distance. sigh. Can’t give up though. There is always something wonderful coming our way, too. Perhaps a bright, green and lush valley between here and there? Best of all, we don’t have the damned tweets to disrupt us for the moment. Makes me want to roll over and have another 45 winks of restful sleep. mmmmmm No, wait… perhaps I will get up and have some chocolate cake instead! Yessssss…cake!
Robert On The Air 