My no-post post

 

This will be brief tonight, because I don’t feel I have much to say. I am heartsick over the Texas Supreme Court decision backing Governor Abbott’s ban on face mask mandates, and I worry about all those young children returning to overcrowded classrooms with probably half their fellow students unmasked. So grateful my grands are all vaccinated. And I am heartsick over the too-quick fall of Afghanistan. The latter is not our problem, though we’ve made it that for too long; the former is indeed our immediate and urgent problem.

My personal opinion? Governor Abbott is running for president on a purely pro-trump agenda, from hard right on individual “freedumbs” to spending a fortune of taxpayer money on a short, two-mile section of the wall that never will be built and never did any good anyway. And his “all hands on deck” to deal with the flooding in the Austin capitol? Showmanship to appeal to trump’s base—he’s a man of action and courage. No, folks, he’s a mean, little man with no compassion, no concern for anyone besides his own ambitious career plans. The thought of him as president sends me scurrying to check my passport.

Afghanistan? It was an exercise in futility, and we should never have stayed there. But it traces back, not to Biden, but to Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra affairs. Google it and study up if you need to. And Trump set the deadline for withdrawal and had already withdrawn the bulk of our troops. Not only do our troubles in Afghanistan go back ro Reagan, so does our problem with immigrants at our southern border. Reagan and cohorts used the profits from armed sales to Khomeini, in exchange for hostages though they denied it, to fund Sandinistas who over-ran a socialist government in Nicaragua and installed a dictator. The godawful conditions in Central America trace back to that. When will America learn to tend to its own problems and stop trying to impose governments and regimes on other countries. And that should include lessons learned in Vietnam, but apparently those lessons were never learned. We have enriched the war machines in our country at the cost of an unbelievable number of American lives. More heartache.

All that aside, I had a peaceful day, with online church, a bit of cooking, some reading, and a nap. The day was capped by dinner with Jean—salmon burgers, made from fresh salmon not canned, and a wilted lettuce salad because I knew she loved that. Plus Jordan’s brownies for dessert. And Jean brought me two big, beautiful tomatoes from the Farmers’ Market. I foresee a tomato sandwich for lunch tomorrow.

I’m going to sleep and try to wake in a better frame of mind, figuring out how I, as one individual, can contribute to the causes I care about. Right now, I figure my concern for students is balanced against my anger at Abbott and those parents who whine about liberty and their freedumb so they can send sick children to school unmasked.

Surely the world will look better tomorrow.