The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’m probably a lot like you, hoping someday to climb Mt. Everest. Because it’s there…. Or maybe because I’m willing to risk my life to ascend to those heights others only dream about, willing to camp in veritable trash dumps down below before being guided by Sherpas carrying my oxygen and food and gear past the dead bodies of my fellow adventurers who didn’t quite achieve their goal. Danger is our middle name, mountaineering is our game.

Sure, I’ve been seeing those photos of a snaking line of colorful parkas clambering toward the summit of Everest toe to heel, looks like a movie line-up around the block to get into the last episode, the prequel to the sequel, of Star Wars playing in Antarctica, everybody roped together for that final Push, probably not much time to snap a photo or leave a flag, just turn around and try to slip past the others still climbing. ‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me, coming through here.

I guess we’ll need some extra oxygen, maybe a few more packets of freeze dried food, probably another Sherpa. Kinda wish there was a Himalayan maître d we could tip to get a better spot in the line, something near the front preferably, slip a few grand into his fleece lined pocket, just one more expense on top of the tens of thousands already paid for climbing fees, tour guides, expedition expenses, etc. Next year we can hit the safari circuit, add a stuffed lion to our trophy case alongside the photo from the summit, great cocktail bragging rights. “Yeah, 11 dead climbers we had to step over to reach the peak, but nobody said it would be easy. Did it bother me? No, ma’am, kinda focused on the goal. Can I get you another martini? Brought the ice back from Nepal. What? No, just kidding. A little joke we mountaineers have for you Flatlanders. Wait, where you going?”

I must be the only person on the planet who hasn’t gotten addicted to Game of Thrones. I ask myself: what is wrong with me? Why can’t I dedicate a few hundred hours to a series about war and mayhem, rape and Dragons? Have I grown up? Is that the problem? Or do I just not know what I’m missing? If the season finale rates right up there in ‘news’ viewers’ interest with Trump’s odd little dealings with Deutsch Bank, who am I to be disdainful of the show. Ya gotta do something with those boring evenings.

I mean, if folks care as much as they do about a Starbuck’s coffee cup peeking out of the background and now a water bottle, for godsake, visible to the eagle-eyed viewers of this week’s final episode, and cry foul, foul! for such an egregious mistake on a show that costs about 15 million dollars an episode (equivalent to about 5 million Starbucks coffees as long as we’re immersed in trivia), then we might have a lot to worry about this coming election whether the star of The Apprentice gets fired or not. Just saying.

I admit, I never played Dungeons or Dragons. I gave up on Star Wars about episode 2 when it seemed like adolescent pulp. I couldn’t even watch the 3rd episode of the Lord of the Rings after about an hour of computer generated mayhem in the 2nd episode. I think my English major background ruined me, I really do. I like literature more than comic books. At least when I reached the ripe old age of 11 or 12. I think movies ought to be thought provoking, not just entertainment. I know, I should get counseling. I live in the wrong country. The wrong era. The wrong place and time. But would counseling really help?

That coffee cup misplaced in the Game, maybe I’m being too judgemental. Maybe I should write to the anal compulsive who gleaned that mistake from the midst of elaborate sets and thank him. He ruined the series for folks who wanted a break from their banal reality. He called their attention to it. He was the moral equivalent of a person who blabs the ending in an intentional spoiler. I may have to watch the Games on rerun. Just to see if I can spot the Starbucks. What else do I have to do that’s better?

We’re about a year and a half away from an election that will, no doubt about it, define where this country is headed for a very long time. Trump. Or not Trump. That is the question. For the GOP it’s an existential question. If Trump is soundly beaten, they can start writing the memoirs of the Republican Party, maybe try to salvage some small shred of lost pride when in truth they sold their collective souls to the man who would be king, kowtowed to a bully and a know-nothing, paid umbrage to a demagogue who promoted conspiracy theories and made a mockery of truth and facts. If Trump wins, they can continue to play the sycophants, lapdogs to a man who owes allegiance only to himself. Well played, gentlemen, well played.

If the term ‘constitutional crisis’ has been over-stated this past year, let me state it once more. We’re in a constitutional crisis. No need to recap the myriad ways this President has flouted the balance of power between the 3 branches of government. This week he sicced the Attorney General on the FBI and the CIA, while accusing their previous heads of treason without evidence. This from the guy who refuses to accept any evidence the Russians tampered with the last election. Putin told him they didn’t, that was plenty for Trump, better to go after the investigators. Better to stonewall the investigative committees. Better to accuse the accusers.

Not saying this isn’t an expedient tactic. A trapped animal will chew its leg off to escape the clamped jaws. Ugly stuff, politics. Uglier yet with a man who usually hires out his dirty work but only has the courage of name calling from a distance. But now we’re treated to accusing the intelligence community of this country of ‘spying’. Spying on Trump’s campaign committee. Sure they were offering deals to Russia to help Donald get his hotel in Moscow, sure they were playing fast and loose with the Ukrainians, of course they were in contact with WikiLeaks. Nothing to worry about there…

We’ve investigated this before. We’ve investigated Benghazi how many times? We spent years on Whitewater. Now we have the Attorney General, the man in charge of the FBI, investigating ‘spying’. Kind of a charged word, spying, to refer to an FISA authorized investigation. If you hang a cloud of suspicion over our federal law enforcement, if you call the news media the enemy of the people, if you think you won the last election’s popular votes because illegals voted, if you claim that there was no obstruction and no collusion and complete exoneration by Mueller’s spying, tell me why I should think if Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, he’ll concede and go peacefully into his Tower.

Jeff Bezos is like a lot of the whiz kid, bang up tech boyz, plenty of smarts, too much money and a penchant for imagining a sci-fi world in their own lifetime. There are plenty of folks who applaud the new Rockefellers, but I’m not one of them. I want them to go away. The moon is a good start, but Mars is even better. Hopefully they’re dreaming even bigger. Leave the solar system, guyz, and be quick about it.

Bezos answered a few questions in Amazon’s stockholder meeting last week, some folks particularly disturbed by the colossal carbon footprint envisioned by same day deliveries, drone technology, and packages containing a toothbrush cushioned by plastic airbags in cardboard boxes that are 100 times larger than the brush delivered by fleets of self-driving trucks and drones. Bezos really didn’t address those concerns, just sees a future so bright we’ll all wear radiation shield sunglasses in our cyclindrical cities orbiting throughout the galaxy, little self-contained communities drifting along in their bubble like boats on a river beneath tangerine skies. You bet.

The trouble is, these self-made bazillionaires have the wherewithal to manifest their vision. And the capability of making this particular planet which I’m kind of fond of, a living hell. If you’re rich enough, you too might board the next city leaving earth’s gravity. Not sure what jobs you’ll have, but hopefully money is as unnecessary as the filthy air and polluted water you’re leaving behind. Utopian dreams by the tech wizards! Oh boy!

Not to sound too Earth chauvinistic, but I like the place. I’d like to take care of it for awhile longer, not just assume folks who feel the need to monetize every profit-making aspect of it have the right to muck it up to the point they’ll want to move on to some new colony to exploit when the resources are sucked dry and the the sky rains poison. I’d prefer to get my Amazon delivery a little later if that would would help. But if Bezos isn’t willing to listen, even to his shareholders, I might have to vote for folks who would make Amazon pay taxes, who would think twice about their packaging, who would hold Bezos’ feet to the fire of global warming. Short of that, hurry up, Jeff and build those rockets. Hopefully you’ll be a passenger on the first plane to leave.

After the boy king’s meltdown yesterday prior to a meeting with Pelosi and Schumer to discuss the way forward on infrastructure, what the Prez had promised a couple trillion for but probably figured out he had no way to fund without raising taxes, Pelosi suggested we give Trump an Intervention. That’s apparently D.C. speak for a Time-Out. Go to your room if you’re going to act like a spoiled brat!! I guess an intervention is half way to an impeachment. Or no supper.

Mama said there’d be days like this. Course, Trump’s mama didn’t. He’s the bully who hits back harder than he got, a big guy in a board room of yes-men and sons-in-laws and kids dumber than a box of one color crayons. Sure, they were afraid of him. One minute raging, the next minute lost in a TV program. But are you gonna criticize Daddy when you know he’ll make you rich?

Pelosi maybe has a point. Actually her point is the end of a sharp stick. She’s figured out how to rile the little fella, make fun of the pathetic boy without seeming mean spirited, just concerned he might be, oh, a little overworked, a little out of his league. It must be tough, running a country with so little talent and unwilling to hire decent help. Wouldn’t hurt to take a break, play some extra days of golf down at Mar a Lago, have some laughs with Rudy Giuliani, forget about the subpoenas and lawsuits and investigations for awhile. Watch a little more Fox and Friends, maybe redecorate Trump Tower. Unwind a bit. He seems ragged as a muskrat with a leg in a trap, all teeth and spit, fang and blood, but not going anywhere any time soon. Take a break, Don, do all of us a world of good.

Pelosi says she’s praying for him. Praying for the country. Nice touch, ma’am, let the evangelicals feel your pain for him. For the Yew Ess of Aye. For all of us. Obviously they’re not praying too hard except for the lives of the unborn. Nancy can pray for them too. Me, I’m praying for that Time-Out. A real long one….