Doug's Darkworld

November 22, 1963. President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Only US president to be assassinated in my lifetime, a huge deal at the time. I was only six though, and either wasn’t living in the US yet, or had just barely moved there. I do seem to recall a funeral on TV that was a big deal, maybe we moved to the US right after the assasination? I do remember a few months later the Beatles arriving in the USA, though I was confused, why were some beetles from England such a big deal? Even at six I was socially isolated, a life skill that serves me well to this day.

I still have piles of memories from then though. I’ve met folks who can’t remember their childhood, not me. This first place we lived in America we stayed for 1 ½ years, an apartment in Pearl River, New York. I could write a book alone about just that year and a half. Highlights include my first concussion (getting hit in the head with a rock was a common childhood experience then, the pre nerf ball generation,) a kid who brought a real gun to play gunfights, and my best friend burning to death. The lost world as I call it, it only lives on in memories, and mostly the memories of the young at the time.

Back to the present, Trump mostly skipped a G20 virtual summit on the global Covid-19 crisis, opting to play golf for part of it. If Obama had done that while more than an American a minute was dying of Covid-19, the screams of outrage from the GOP would have been overheard and recorded in numerous locations in Canada. Still, true to form for Trump. He’s pretty much abandoned America’s position of leadership in the world. Like pulling out of the WHO during a global pandemic. Great, OK, if we grant that the WHO wasn’t doing a good job, what’s the alternative? Trump’s got nothing.

That’s kinda where we’re at now, the GOP has been the party of “Nope!” since Obama got elected. Got an alternative to the ACA (Obamacare?) Nope. Got an alternative to the Iran Nuclear deal? Nope. The Paris Climate Agreement? Nope. I could go on, but why bother. The modern GOP knows what it hates and wants out of, real world policies to replace what they are pulling out of, nope. If making America an outsider and pariah on the world stage was what Trumpers wanted, they won! America the isolated, scorned, and pitied.

Reviewing the news for last minute notes, I see the fellow that popularized the “Ice bucket Challenge” has passed. ALS is a horrible disease. As my dad said when my stepmom was diagnosed with it, at least it’s a disease “uncomplicated by hope.” Even if one doesn’t die, most do, the small number that don’t are still very disabled for life. Think Stephen Hawking. My dad also said, not original: “Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.” His father (my grandfather) outlived three wives. My dad hoped marrying a woman 20 years younger would avoid that fate. Oh well, RIP Patrick and Ursula.

Final Doug’s Darkworld comment. Yeah, it’s great when some charitable endeavour results in money flowing to some good cause. The problem is, there’s no shortage of money. The modern world is rich beyond any caesar’s dreams, industrialization and modern science has yielded wealth almost uncountable. There’s easily enough wealth to address all of the world’s problems, including ALS. Instead, because of the unfathomable greed of the world’s rich and powerful, we live in a world where the charity of the poor and working class is touted as the “only” solution to such things as world hunger, ALS, and all the rest. It’s sick and wrong.

We never left the Garden of Eden, that’s a lie perpetuated by those who want the garden’s wealth for themselves. Christianity is a religion for slaves, as a lost friend put it. Stay safe everyone; comments, likes, shares appreciated. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Kennedy minutes before his murder. Credit: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News. He let the copyright expire in 1991, now Public Domain under US copyright law.)