The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Donald J. came out today with a tweet mocking the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, calling him Little Adam Schitt. The man’s name is Schiff and if the obese President thinks he’s little, let’s see what he thinks when the House flips blue and Adam Schiff begins the subpoena process his predecessor Devin Nunes blocked.

We’re all used to our bully President mocking and belittling those he doesn’t like, meaning about everyone who isn’t on Fox News. We’re even accustomed to tweets that are lies and borderline insane, like the one two days ago that the state of California should clean up its act on firefighting strategies and adopt the highly successful Finnish model of raking up its leaves in the woods so they won’t allow catastrophic fires up there in the Arctic. The Finnish President that Donald spoke with about this pressing issue doesn’t recall any such conversation, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have one in Donald’s head.

So I can let these pass by without much angst, having accepted, like most of the King’s minions, that this is just everyday normal. The new normal, I guess we like to call it. But what is harder for me is the President going after Smokey the Bear, an American icon for nearly 70 years, the symbol of fire fighting for the Forest Service when they found a bear cub badly burned in a forest fire back in 1950. My old man worked for the Forest Service all his life and Smokey was part of mine all my life.

My dad was a Republican. He never quite acknowledged that the attacks on government included the Forest Service. They weren’t tax sucking bureaucrats in the D.C. swamp, not a bit. They were dedicated professionals managing our National Forests, creating Wilderness Areas, logging sustainably, building campgrounds and parks, yeah, and fighting fires. They fought them so successfully that now the undergrowth has built up over the years without smaller natural fires to keep the forests open and we have conflagrations unimaginable in the days when he would fly out to California or Arizona from our homes on the east coast to man the fire lines.

Smokey the Bear, he might argue and I certainly would, doesn’t live in a swamp. He’s there to remind us humans that the forests are ours to protect. Only YOU can prevent forest fires, he admonished us for all those years. So sweep the woods if you want to listen to the President. Or blame the people who fight those fires if you believe the guy. But me, I have to state categorically, the President is full of schitt.

Some of my buddies are working hard to see who can build the largest wrecking yard on the South End. Ever since Tyee Store sold back in the ‘80’s and the new owners hauled off the acre of cars, trucks, chassis and bus parts, the neighborhood had to drive clear to Mount Vernon or Marysville for cannibalized auto parts to repair our beaters. The last trip I made to the Quilceda Swamps to pull an automatic tranny in the mudhole where a ’62 BelAire had bellied down before submerging completely into the tarpits, well, that transmission lasted less than a hundred miles before it bit the dust. Or mud. Or whatever.

Maybe that’s why we keep our dead rigs — never know when a part off the old vehicle might save us the dreaded trip to distant off-island wrecking yards. So we make our less-than-manicured acreage our own personal salvage yards. Sure the mizzus cries, sure she sobs, but hellfire, she sure isn’t going to be the one who crawls on her belly to dismount some rusted differential in the mud and the rain miles from home.

Now, you know and I do too, chances are slim to none that we’ll ever need anything off those blackberry strangled rigs up on blocks or down on deteriorated radials back by the woods. But it’s a kind of backwash insurance policy, see? If you got it, the gods of fate will pass you by. If you don’t, you might as well stick a black flag on the roof and say come and get me. It’s a law of the universe actually. And it’s certainly the Law on the South End, inviolable and terrible and probably swift. Tempt the gods at your own peril, amigo, we’ve learned the Hard Way.

So if you see an old ’65 Mustang peeking out of the nettle forests down some dead end road up a dark ravine, don’t bother knocking on that shack door to inquire how much the owner might want for that vintage car you want to restore. He needs it, my friend. He needs it for parts, he needs it for peace of mind, he needs it to barricade the door from the gods of fate.

Two autumns ago I was rowing offshore from my trail down to the beach in my little rowboat. My favorite crabbing spot is about a quarter mile out where my pots get dropped 75 feet or so. It was a sunny afternoon, nobody on the water as far as I could see, the Sound flat as glass, the world quiet except for my homemade oars touching the water each stroke. My perfect oyster.

When the water is that still, you can hear a long ways the distinctive whoosh of a whale expelling air through a blowhole, and sure enough, just off my bow another few hundred yards, I could see the killer whales moving north in a slow procession, occasionally breaching, their black and white coloration appearing and reappearing. In all the years I’ve been here, I’ve only seen orcas rarely. The grey whales are pretty common, but not the killers. So I just sat back for awhile and enjoyed the show.

This year the alarms have been sounding that the pods are diminished to the point of potential extinction. Well, duh. The resident orcas are down to under one hundred and the sad sight of one mother carrying her dead baby on her nose for day after day captured the hearts of even the hardest hearted. So that lately we’re hearing demands to breach the dams back as far as the Snake River in Idaho and to clean up the Sound and to widen the culverts on the spawning streams. To save the Orca! To save the killer whales!

The orcas are the latest spotted owl. Their habitat has been despoiled, their food supply has been overharvested, their spawning grounds have been silted over and closed off. Yeah, they’re in trouble. So are the salmon. So are the sharks. So are the bottom fish. So are most everything out there in the Puget Sound basin, my Dungeness crabs included.

So are we. We’re not going to breach any damns on the Columbia or the Snake Rivers. We’re not going to save the whales. We waited too long. We overfished our waters, we clogged our streams, we clearcut down to the rivers’ edge, we didn’t give a damn until it was too late. Way of the world. We’ll drill the Arctic, we’ll dredge the sea, we’ll mine the National Parks, we’ll cut the redwoods. There are always people, folks with power and money and a greed that has no bounds, who will justify it. They’ll say that global warming is a hoax, that the earth is theirs to plunder, that we need the minerals, the oil, the hydro-electric, the fish and all the rest.

The orcas are up against some bad odds. What we don’t seem to realize is we’re the orcas.

Over in leftist Europe a Dutchman has petitioned his government for the right to change his age. Why not, he says, when you can change your sex? Sure, it’s tempting to go back to diapers and start over, maybe change your parents too while you’re at it, get a fresh run at childhood, adolescence, adulthood. The Dutchman really mostly wants to be able to date younger women but who are we to judge? He wants to change his age from 69 to 49. Figures the chicks will go for that ….

I’m going to be 69 in a few months. Or 49, depending on how this guy does in Dutch court, see if he sets a global precedent. My IQ has been dropping over the years, why not correlate that with my age? I’ve alerted my plastic surgeon and ordered a year’s supply of generic Viagra. Got myself a personal trainer and haven’t breathed a word to the mizzus. If this works out, maybe next birthday I’ll apply to my old high school and see if I can work my way into the popular crowd with the benefit of hindsight. Might skip a couple or seven of the dead end jobs I had in my youth, might even go back to college and get a degree that would make me employable. Course, chances are I wouldn’t get into the In Crowd and even more likely I’d fritter away my college years same as I did before.

Plus, I’d lose Medicare. All my life I had health insurance that cost a king’s ransom and offered only ‘catastrophic’ coverage. Kinda hate to go back to those days, especially since my 49 year old bones still feel like 69. And I would hate to leave the mizzus stuck in old age while I’m cavorting like a Millenial, just doesn’t seem fair, probably not right. Plus, that IQ keeps dropping. If I added all those extra years to my longevity, jeez, by the time I hit the next 69, I’d be about as smart as my old dog was, not very.

So maybe I need to rethink this, you know, while I still can. Best case, maybe wait until we can petition the courts to raise our IQ’s.

In Finland this week the fjord-folks are lining up to obtain the tax records of their friends and co-workers. The government makes these documents available to any and all, apparently in an attempt to keep the income disparities we have here in the Yew Ess Aye from growing too large in their wintry environment, I guess by letting everyone know that the guy in the next cubicle makes more than they do for the same or similar work. Might be a good idea. Might shame employers who pay men more than women or whites more than people of color. Probably won’t shame hedge fund managers or CEO’s. Shame is not part of their lexicon.

But then … maybe it just makes us South Enders crazy with envy for those who worked for Boeing or Weyerhauser, Microsoft or Google, made quick fortunes and retired with golden parachutes. I seriously doubt we need financial disclosure statements of those neighbors behind gated fences. What is worrisome, at least for me, is the potential for just saying to hell with the whole system, why work for measley wages when the millionaire across the ravine is traveling full time in Asia, New Zealand, Costa Rica and Paris? A few years back my UPS driver, who had a shack up in the foothills, told me, when I mentioned my brother worked for Big Brown too and made pretty good money, that he only worked for ‘wages’. I asked what he meant, ‘only work for wages’?

“I deliver to all these dot.com retirees who made a fortune,” he said. “I just make wages.” I said I think I’d look at it a little bit different. You got a nice place up in the hills, got a decent job at a decent wage, why not be happy with that? He shook his head sadly and muttered that it was hard when half his deliveries went to folks who retired at 45, got a whopping pension and stock options, and now they sit back with the life of Riley while he has to work his ass off to make ends meet.

I told him again I’d rethink that if I were him. I said I don’t make squat but I don’t have fantasies of being rich either. Poverty won’t buy you happiness, but it won’t deprive you of it either. He didn’t think that was funny or cute and he left shaking his head, no doubt driving off to the next mansion past my shack, maybe stopping at Tyee Store to buy a lottery ticket before delivering a gold plated mailbox to my neighbor.

I don’t care what folks make. I don’t care if my own mailbox is bent and the flag isn’t gold. I do think we have too low a minimum wage and we have too many rich people taking more than their fair share. But this is America. Money talks and the poor can take a backseat or hitchhike. But some of us aren’t poor, not really, and maybe we should enjoy what riches we have. Instead of envying the wealthy.

In case you aren’t keeping up on the latest Barefoot Bandit sightings, the Kid has been back here on the South End for half a year. He served his time in a federal prison and was released last winter. We all – okay, most of us down here – wished the Kid well, hoping his stint behind bars would give him time to consider his options as an adult, maybe go back to college, find a trade in his beloved aviation field. The boy always dreamed of flying.

When one of his benefactors moved away, they gave Colton the power of attorney to sell their homestead south of Tyee Store. He booted out their mom and her husband, plus the disabled guy living in a trailer off in the woods. Kind of harsh, some said, but hey, he was in charge of putting the acreage and houses on the island’s hot real estate market. Furniture and debris got piled into a small mountain, ready for a match. He waited until the drought made fires, any fires, a threat to the neighbors, then he torched it.

Guitar Bob is the closest neighbor, his property adjoining the Kid’s. He tried explaining his concern, but was pretty much ignored and anyway, the fire was lit. In more ways than one. Colton had a sign at the entrance to the driveway. It explained how anyone trespassing past that sign would be shot. His mom had one just like it back in the heady days when Colton was on the run and she wearied of international reporters knocking on her trailer door. Guitar Bob figured the sign was mostly smoke. ‘The Kid’s a felon,’ he said, ‘illegal to even own a weapon.’ Much less use it on trespassers.

Bob is pretty much a live and let live kind of South Ender. He and his dog Maynard G. mostly just want to be left the hell alone and so he could sympathize with the Bandit’s ornery warning. Bob doesn’t put up warning signs, but like I said, he lives with his dog, which is warning enough. What the Kid does, he figures, is his own damn bizness.

You know, until he decides to run his table saw at 12:30 in the morning. Like a lot of us, Bob sleeps about then. Or tries to. But the saw is only a hundred feet from his bedroom and if you’ve ever tried to snooze with a lawnmower or a chainsaw or a table saw running high rev, you know sleep isn’t in the cards. So Bob got up, grumpy no doubt, put on his pants and a pair of shoes, then wandered through the hole in the fence behind his place and over to where the Kid was doing a little midnight woodworking. Bob is in his 70’s, not exactly in fighting shape, but I have no doubt he cast a menacing shadow in the doorway of that shop, forget the bullshit warning about getting shot for trespassing. Bob asked the Kid what the hell he thought he was doing.

What he thought he was doing was some woodworking late at night. Didn’t think anyone would mind. It is, after all, the South End, not exactly heavily populated. ‘Was I bothering you?’ Oh yeah, he was bothering Bob, Bob made that very clear. He might be an old timer, but he’s an ornery old timer and if you know Bob like I know Bob, you know once he’s pissed off, he’s not backing up. I suspect Colton met a few Bobs in the federal prison, recognized the type and apologized. He explained he liked to work late at night. Bob explained he liked to sleep late at night. And so in the wee hours, they came to an understanding.

The next day the Kid dropped by with a gift card to the local grocery in Stanwoodopolis. Bob considered it briefly, then handed it back. “Give it to someone who needs it,’ he said. ‘Just give me a little peace and quiet, we’ll get along fine.’ And so, once again the South End settled into a calm before the next storm, no lives lost, no harm done. Personally, and this is just me, I think the Kid should go back to school.

Lordy, lordy, how the pot paints the kettle black. Mitch McConnell warned the Democrats who now run the oversight committees in the House not to engage in presidential harassment. He opined that they had tried that themselves with Bill Clinton and it had backfired when, after years of investigation that turned up mostly nada, Bubba’s poll ratings were higher than ever. Mitch evidently has an ethical compass whose True North moves based on polling.

His boss fired Sessions yesterday about ten minutes after a less than conciliatory press conference where he declared he would like to work toward unity with the Democrats then blasted the press one more time as enemies of the people. In Session’s place, the prez put in a guy who has made it clear the Mueller investigation has gone too far. This is a slow rolling Saturday Night Massacre, a bit smarter than Nixon’s, but nevertheless a not too subtle obstruction of justice. You’d do the same thing if you were in his place. McConnell, maybe not. Just warn the Democratic House that if they don’t wise up, he’ll wage war on them. Politics, all’s fair and nothing is too low.

The Harasser-in-Chief now finds himself under siege. Or will soon. He might be heartened that the Big Blue Wave was more of a gentle lapping on the beach of D.C. than folks like myself might’ve hoped, but even the rural red states might be interested in what Mueller has to say when the cow poop hits the fan. Those who see hope in derailing his investigation have never played chess. Mueller knows his quarry and is probably six or seven moves ahead of any tactic the White House think tank (only kidding!) is considering. And the Republicans know if they’re seen as aiding in an obstruction, especially if what are uncovered are high crimes and treason, the price will be a great deal higher than losing the House. No doubt they already have a pretty frightening picture of what Mueller is going to uncover.
Unless the Democrats are looking for a circular firing squad, impeachment is not on most of their wish lists. Nobody outside the evangelicals wants to see Pence as an incumbent come 2020 and that includes his wife and dog. What they dearly hope for —and the Grand Old Party dreads — is the slow but steady drip of poison as investigation after investigation makes the Hillary Wikileaks look benign. Trump, the man who loves a good bullying, who revels in body slamming the press, well, he should have been more careful what he wished for. He’s about to become the national pinata.

So you thought you’d take a break from politics the day after the elections, did you? Sure you did, but you forgot, the Trumpster never takes a break, the Trumpster never sleeps, the Trumpster is the Energizer Bad Bunny of America. Like those sci-fi creatures from the ‘50’s, he cannot exist without your attention. He feeds on your horror at every tweet, at every dog whistle, at every misogynistic slur. Avert your eyes for a few days and he’d dissolve in a puddle of his own slime like the Wicked Witch of the West after a bucket of cold water.

Get ready for another two years. They don’t call it Mid-Term for chuckles. Halfway through our national ordeal. Expect some cabinet shake-ups. Some firings. Some name calling. Another Saturday Night Massacre. Get ready for a stand-off at the border with the zombie caravan trudging north. Gear up for a little saber rattling with Iran and more of that loveable John Bolton, the guy who loves a good ground war. If you thought the Blue Wave might shut these folks down for awhile, you’ve been out of the country for too long on some cruise ship to Antarctica.

The Trump/Bannon paradigm is to use tweets the way a mass killer uses an AR-15. Careful aim isn’t what matters, what matters is keeping the trigger finger engaged. Given enough time and ammo, the splatter spray will bring a building down. Congressional hearings will take months, investigations will take years, Mueller may be fired … but meantime the ricocheting tweets and executive orders will be a constant barrage on the 24/7 news cycle. The man is a human whack-a-mole, popping up here, popping up there, popping up everywhere.

He didn’t lose those elections yesterday. He never loses. And we didn’t win any yesterday. There is no winning with this guy in office. Buckle up, the ride isn’t anywhere near over.

The mizzus and me were thinking of having an Election Party this mid-term. Serve up some bubbly and hopefully celebrate a Blue Wave. But then we remembered the last two election parties we had, one where Trump thumped Hillary and the other where Gore lost to Bush. Now, I like a good cry as well as the next man, but three in a row, not so much. So we’re going to skip that party and hope our luck changes for the better.

Trump is on the stump now. Hell if I know who’s running the country while he’s jetting to the red states with his little red MAGA cap, maybe Kellyanne, maybe Sarah Sanders. All I know is he can’t do as much damage on the road. And even he seems to understand that if this election goes Blue, his next two years he can look forward to some real investigations, not the pretend ones we have now. What is in those tax returns he’s waiting for the audit to conclude before showing us how the Master of the Deal evades paying anything. While we’re at it, maybe take a look at those emoluments, at the nepotism, at the Russian connections, at the Hillary e-mails that turned up in Trump’s campaign committee, at a few of those business deals of his.

Goodbye to the ‘pass’ the GOP gave him for two years if that happens, hello to Bob Mueller’s detailed results of his investigation. Course, if it’s a Red Wave, it’s crying time again. We’ll get the message that Trump wasn’t just some anomaly where the electorate wanted to shake things up and he was the monkey wrench. We’ll discover the majority in this country love a thug, a bully, a dog-whistling demagogue who prefers dictators far more than the democracy he intends to subvert.

I’m optimistic the country made a mistake two years ago and now realize the damage done. I’m hopeful we’ll right the ship of state and send Trump’s enablers packing for their new lobbying jobs. But I’m too cynical to be confident. Trump showed me what this country can easily become. And worse, what it already is. We’ll see shortly if we’ve seen an even darker future. Meanwhile, we’re skipping the party.

Rep. Matt Shea, a state legislator in the Spokane Valley, has been putting out a pamphlet citing Biblical passages to promote war and violence. His ‘Biblical Basis for War’ is a four page guide to waging holy war against those who refuse to obey Biblical Law. Now, I’m an eye for an eye kind of guy most of the time, but this is maybe a little more, I don’t know, close to what the good Representative for the Inland Empire might accuse the Muslims of doing if they could impose Sharia Law.

You have an abortion, you change gender, you marry someone of the same sex, well, you’re guilty of violating Biblical Law and should be punished. And, to quote from Matt’s text, ‘if they do not yield, kill all males.’ Kinda harsh, Matt, but pretty clear. Maybe stone them. Or behead them. Whatever you like but send a message to all the liberals and scofflaws, you ignore the Bible, buddy, you get what you deserve, death delivered by the righteous!!

Death to the gays, death to the woman who has an abortion, death to the folks who get a sex change, death to the unyielders, boy, howdy, that’s a lot of executions. And if you start throwing in death because you eat pork, death if you commit adultery, death if you steal, death if you worship false gods, holy prayer meeting, Matt, who’s gonna be left to vote for you?

These are strange times in the Holy Land, no doubt about it. Probably smart to get your hands on a Bible and read it, maybe take some serious notes if you want to avoid the Wrath of Matt. Over in Pakistan the True Believers are up in arms over some Christian woman who blasphemed the Prophet. She’s been on death row for years, but the Courts there said she was free to go. Not so fast, Sister, the Muslim Mattsters cried and poured out into the streets of Islamabad by the thousands, blocking her exit out of that less than tolerant country. Now the Supreme Court says they’ll review the verdict to avoid a political crisis. Seems to me we could defuse this fairly easy. Trade the woman for Matt. They’d both be happier in the other country.