February and F-Bombs

I am no stranger to the February Funk. A couple of years ago I wrote a piece about it entitled "The Curse of February." Every word of it was true and remains so today. But, this year feels different.

I suppose that when you endure February amidst the backdrop of a presidential campaign season, things feel worse. Even though elections are an essential part of living in a democracy, and for the most part a healthy exercise, there is a certain amount of silliness to them as well, and this year, a new level of vulgarity, a tawdry tinge to things not seen before. Most of it comes courtesy of Mr. Trump who recently has felt emboldened enough by his success to inject language into his speeches that heretofore had been considered toxic for serious politicians. Within days I'm sure we will all be treated to the first intentional F-Bomb drop by a Presidential candidate in U.S. History. If past is prologue, Trump's poll numbers will go up afterwards, especially among evangelicals!!

I don't know...maybe it's no big deal. Presidential candidates, I'm sure, use this sort of language in private all the time. If we say we want authenticity in our public servants, maybe a coarsening of their language is what we get. Listen, I'm no angel when it comes to the occasional salty word. Sometimes, when trying to express a difficult emotion, a well timed four letter one does quite nicely. But, I'm not running for President. I prefer a minimum standard of dignity from those aspiring to lead my country. I like to believe that the men and women running for the highest office in the land have the requisite vocabulary needed to communicate their thoughts to us without resorting to the lowest level of communication we share...the profane. But, now that pu**y and s**t are out of the bottle, something tells me they will never go back in. ( I use the asterisks here just in case my Mother might somehow be reading this in heaven...).

But, I digress. February is with us for another 17 cold and dreary days. There's Valentines Day to look forward to, and President's Day. But mostly, thin clouds, a small sky and a diminished sun, trying their best to simulate a real month. 

Thanks, New Hampshire.

It is now official. The folks over at Ripley's can go ahead and print it in their latest edition. Hillary Clinton is the worst Presidential candidate in history. Despite having more campaign cash than anybody, more name recognition than anybody, and the full throated support of most of the media, she just got...trounced, whipped, embarrassed, and dare I say, manhandled, by a 74 year old Socialist in New Hampshire. This after getting waxed in 2008 by a first term black senator with a thinner resume than Kim Khardashian. It would appear that Mrs. Clinton is the most overrated politician of this or any other age.

On the Republican side, it's becoming harder and harder to imagine a scenario that doesn't feature Donald Trump as the nominee. The only person who can beat him now is Ted Cruz, and I'm not sure even about that. Rubio, Bush and Kasich are finished. Although Kasich finished second, it was a very distant second in a state he had practically lived in for the past year. And now, he's broke. There is no reason whatsoever for Chris Christie, Carla Fiorina or Ben Carson to remain in the race. It will be a two man fight the rest of the way between two men who the Republican establishment truly despise.

So, the prospect of a fall election featuring dueling populists is starting to become more and more likely. Part of me thinks that if Hillary implodes, the big cheeses in the Democratic Party will step in and insist that Joe Biden get in the race. Despite the support of his enthusiastic supporters, Bernie Sanders isn't going to become the next President of the United States. Come one people. We aren't freaking Venezuela! Of course, in my lifetime the Democratic Party actually nominated Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis, so anything is possible I suppose. 

But let's say for a minute that it winds up being Trump v. Sanders. We would have one candidate appealing to our fear, and another appealing to our greed. One guy promising to build a wall, and another guy promising to make health care and a college education a free entitlement. One guy who has never been elected to anything before, and another guy who has never had a real, private sector job in his entire life, surviving for over 50 years at the public trough. One guy who thinks a country can be governed by the sheer brilliance of his personality and another guy who thinks that the answer to every problem we face can only be found by expanding the power and reach of government. It will be Benito Mussolini v. Karl Marx redux. Instead of " It's morning in America', more like..."It's midnight in America. Do you know where your kids are?" Both of these men will be in their 70's if they get elected.

'Merica.

Good News and Bad News

I run a terrible risk in this space when I write about personal health issues. For one thing, my sister will get mad at me because if you even insinuate anything physically unpleasant around her, she gets the vapors. My wife might protest that I am offering too much information...that most of the people who regularly read this blog have their own health problems, so they don't need to hear about mine...an excellent point. So, instead of giving you a blow by blow account of the last 24 hours, I'll let Dave Berry do it for me.

A dear, sick, and twisted friend of mine sent me an email last week offering this observation: "As someone in the health field, I feel it to be my duty to let you know just what you're getting into with regards to your up-coming procedure. Let me know if this info changes your mind about going through with it."

Attached was a column written by one of my favorite satirists, Dave Barry. He too had endured a recent colonoscopy, and unlike me had no reservations about writing of his experiences. I won't produce the entire article, but the following paragraph is, believe me, right on the money!! It captures the essence of what it is like to drink the four liters of swill, and what follows. His stuff was called MoviPrep. Mine was Prep335.

"MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic here, but: Have you ever seen a space shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink the second half of the MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not eaten yet!"

For me, this meant missing the entire half time show...from what I have read, this turned out to be a blessing. That's all I can say about the night without violating the admittedly lax internet decency laws. The actual procedure was a piece of cake. The last thing I heard was an exchange between my doctor and the anesthesiologist:

Doctor: Did you hear that they said that last night over 20 million chicken wings were consumed?

Anesthesiologist: Poor chickens...

The next thing I heard was an enthusiastic nurse asking me if I would like some ginger ale. Just like that, I was on my way home. Results to follow in a week or so, but so far, so good.

On a completely unrelated note...yesterday I received some bad news about a kid that I taught back in my youth group days. Every so often it happens. Kids lose their way sometimes. It's hard becoming an adult. Most of the news I get about the kids I taught is wonderful, someone got married, someone got a huge promotion, someone else is having a baby. But then, bad news comes, and it's devastating...still. I'm always surprised. No matter how troubled kids may have been, I suppose I always feel like they had enough potential to eventually figure it out. When the bad news comes, I think back to my encounters with him or her. I wonder why I couldn't get through to them, I ask myself whether I tried hard enough. Then regret sets in. But I remind myself that there's much more good than bad. 

And then, I want to hug my own kids a little closer.

So Pumped For My Fast

With the exception of the desk chair, the library is complete. Pretty cool. I will take great comfort from this room today as I subsist on jello, bottled water, black coffee, and the occasional Popsicle. It's 8:15am and I'm already starving. Might have had something to do with the stomach-expanding last supper I had last night at Glory Days...

Worth it though. That's one Chicago dog, six teriyaki wings, six onion rings, and three celery sticks slathered in blue cheese dressing. By the time I was finished, the only thing left was the sauce bespotted basket liner...and I had to fight the temptation to lick that clean. I believe it's called, "getting your money's worth." Alert readers will notice Pam's more balanced, nutritious meal in the background of this photograph. Yes, glazed grilled salmon and steamed vegetables are the perfect point, counter-point to my self-indulgent feast. However, it should be noted that she copped two onion rings off my plate...she's no culinary saint.

A friend on Facebook, when reminded of my predicament, asked this question..."Does this mean no Sunday lunch?" Not, "Oh dear Doug. I'm so sorry you have to endure this sort of thing on Super Bowl Sunday." Not even a, "Don't worry Doug, it will be over before you know it." No, my friend only wanted to know how my gastrointestinal troubles were going to inconvenience her after church plans! Well, I'm not going to name names here but, Leigh Ann Fort, don't worry. Pam and I will be going out to eat after church like always. I will drink my complimentary ice water while the rest of you pound that plate of nachos. I'm a big boy. I can take it.

Last night Pam and I Facetimed both of our kids. What an astounding age we live in. I touched one little button on my iPad, and twenty seconds later their bright, crystal clear faces appeared on the screen. We talked and laughed, and they got a guided tour of the new library. There were no glitches. It cost me absolutely nothing. It came to me courtesy of the boundless creativity and innovation of the private sector and free enterprise. If we weren't so jaded and entitled as a people we would be more appropriately amazed and grateful. I still remember what it was like communicating with Pam 35 years ago when we were dating and she was away at college. I had to wait until after 9 o'clock in the evening to call her...on my black dial up phone. If our conversation lasted more than fifteen minutes the would be hell to pay when the C&P telephone bill came in the mail at the end of the month. So, I seldom called. We wrote letters instead...love letters, some of them quite juicy as I recall. It's a lost art today, I think. Still, FaceTime technology is awesome.

In Praise of the First Amendment

The last piece of the library gets delivered today, a third bookcase. Then Pam and I will have a blast shopping at Hobby Lobby for all of the incumbent nicnackery required to give the room that finished look. I love that store. For not a whole lot of money, you can buy something that looks like it could have been salvaged from an antiques barn in Vermont, when in fact it was slapped together in some Taiwanese sweatshop two weeks ago. Nothing quite says  Early-Americana like a pair of wood grained plastic bald eagle bookends manufactured by Asian adolescents. But, such is the brave new world of global free trade.

Yesterday, I posted a couple of very irreverent photos/cartoons lampooning several Presidential candidates. I include them here for those of you who may not have seen them yesterday:

It's Paula Trump ya'll!!

Grandma, Grandpa...stop it!!

It occurs to me what a privilege it is to do this. How great is it that we live in a country where we are allowed to take cheap shots at those who presume to lead us? How wonderful is it to have First Amendment protections? How glorious a thing is free expression? Whenever I see something on Facebook ripping someone on my side over some hypocritical thing or another, I think to myself...that's actually pretty funny, and great. Of course the stuff ripping the other side seems even funnier and greater to me, but that's as it should be. The point is, for most of recorded history, Kings, princes and lesser petty tyrants took a very dim view of this sort of thing, and anyone caught making wisecracks about leaders met with a bloody and violent end. The Tower of London stands as the ultimate political oppression museum, a poignant reminder of what political life was like for 99% of human beings that have ever lived on this planet.

But not us. Thanks to an admittedly flawed collection of white men from the 18th century, we have the U.S. Constitution, and thanks to James Madison's bull-headed insistence on a Bill of Rights, I sit here at my desk spewing out opinionated venom at any politician who pisses me off.

God Bless America

My New Library

My new library furniture came yesterday, everything except the desk chair which had to be back ordered and won't be here until March, and one more bookcase which we didn't know we wanted until they put these two together. I couldn't be happier about how it all turned out. It's beautiful. I feel smarter just sitting here! Lucy isn't exactly thrilled. She tiptoes around, sniffing mightily, annoyed that the chairs aren't big enough for me and her. The first thing Pam did was rip down the window curtains because they didn't match the rug. I didn't even know that matching curtains with rugs was a thing.

Writing my first blog at this desk feels weird...like I should write something intelligent this time, with no fart jokes, and better grammar. We'll see.

I lost a cousin yesterday. John "Bubby" Dixon died after a long illness. He was a legend in my Mother's family. His father, my Mother's brother, was a tank driver in Patton's army during WWII. Bubby was awarded multiple Purple Hearts for his combat services during the Vietnam war. He was older than me, closer in age to my brother Donnie, who drove down from Maryland yesterday to be at his side. We weren't close, the Dixon's stayed in Nelson County, while the Dunnevants moved away. My most searing memory of him was when I was 8 years old at my Grandmothers funeral. She had been killed in a head on collision with a vehicle driven...by Bubby. He was devastated, distraught beyond description. For an 8 year old, it created an unforgettable image. Soon after that experience, he signed on to fight the Vietcong. Now he's gone. Donnie called last night with the news, his voice cracking with emotion. I regretted not going to see him...he was part of my Mother. I should have been there.

I have three more days of eating left before my Super Bowl fast. 

This jug seems to grow larger and more menacing with each passing day. On Sunday morning, I will fill it with lukewarm water and empty the handy lemon flavor pack into the mix. Between 5:00 and 10:00 pm I will need to somehow drink the entire gallon. This, after a day of eating nothing but jello and Popsicles. Seriously? We can put a man on the moon, but this is the best we can do in the gastrointestinal sciences? I read somewhere that some people throw a little vodka into the mix. Intriguing. But I want to be in full command of my facilities when this stuff kicks in...nothing would be worse than a stumble and fall on your way to the toilet!

Oh, great! My first library inspired blog, and I end up using the word toilet!! You can dress a guy up...but you can't take him anywhere!

My Weekend and a Movie Review

Spent this past weekend in beautiful Columbia, South Carolina visiting my daughter and her husband and their giant clown of a dog, Jackson Fitzgerald Manchester:

He is everything that our Lucy is not, afraid of nothing, a lumbering mass of fur and slobbering kisses, and about the most loving creature you'll ever meet. For now, Jackie-Jack is the closest thing we have to a grandchild, so I feel some primal urge to bore you with the above two pictures.

While we were there, we watched The Martian. Pam had wanted to watch it during last week's snowstorm, but I refused. I was suffering from acute cabin fever as it was, so there was no way I was going to make it worse by watching Matt Damon trapped on an entire planet by himself. Besides, I've never been much of a science geek. I mean, science is great, I benefit from its pursuit and all, but I've always been uncomfortable around its biggest fans. Something inside me is annoyed by the smug assurance of the science crowd, their presumption that everything can be explained by science, that anything that won't succumb to their calculations is nothing more than charming myth. Of course, that's just me. Everyone else in the world these days seems in awe of science and scientists.

So, I hadn't particularly wanted to see this movie. Many of the reviews were all about the mastery of science, the power of the mind of man unleashed on even the most intractable problems producing triumph after triumph. I half expected the film to have an intermission where a white-coated scientist comes out on stage and lectures the audience about global warming. But then, I actually watched the thing. Wow.

Yes, everyone involved in this story is super smart. The brain power called forth to keep a man alive on an inhospitable planet 125 million miles from Earth, is truly an awe-inspiring thing to behold. But what I took away from the movie wasn't the infinite capacity of the mind of man to solve problems. The hero of the movie wasn't science so much as ....work.

We see Matt Damon's character hauling wheelbarrows full of Martian soil for hours on end. We watch him using power tools of every description, we see him tending to his potatoe garden with the back breaking skill of a farmer. At every turn he works. Grinding, physical labor is his life, because his life depends upon it. Yes, his scientific training as a world class botanist is on display, and it is quite impressive. But what makes it all work...is work.

I remember one time my Dad telling me that there wasn't any such thing as work that was "beneath you." If it was important enough for somebody to do, then it was important enough for you to do. He would usually launch into this speech when I was spreading cow manure in the garden. I suppose I took him at his word since my first paying job was mucking horse stalls at the State Fair of Virginia.

Anyway, The Martian was a fine film, worth the nearly two and a half hours it took to watch the thing. It was about the triumph of the entire human spirit, everything that makes us who we are...our mind and it's limitless capacity to solve problems and the miracles that come when we couple intellect with hard work.

Iowa Observations

So, maybe Donald Trump isn't invincible after all. Ted Cruz went into Iowa, came out against the most sacred cow of all times-the ethanol subsidy gravy train- and WON. If Marco Rubio had had one more day he would have knocked Trump out of second place. Amazing. I'm thinking that Donald Trump's Twitter feed is going to be the center of the middle school universe over the next several days.

On the Democrat side, it was like kissing your sister...a tie. Really?? Of course, Hillary declared victory. Bernie was having none of it, thrusting his tight fist into the air in front of his frenzied supporters, looking for all the world like what Che Guevara might have looked like had he survived into old age.

Poor Jim Gilmore. He's having a difficult time connecting to voters. By difficult I mean...impossible. The one person in all of Iowa who stood up at a caucus site in support of the former Virginia governor won the night with this great line..."slow and steady wins the race...and nobody has had a slower start than Jim Gilmore!"

Well, as a Virginian, it's high time that I stepped up and came to his defense. Might I suggest a few campaign slogans for the Gilmore team?

# Expect Less

# Charisma is Overrated

# Time For a President We Can All Forget

# It's Time For Millard Filmore's Second Term

# Hope. Change, and a really cheap suit.

On to New Hampshire!!

How I Would Vote if I were an Iowan.

If I were an active, engaged citizen of Iowa, I would have a very difficult decision to make. How to vote?

That's right, I said how to vote. This early in the Presidential nominating process, its more about how than who. Let me explain.

If I were a Democrat, the choice would be...do I want to finally reward Hillary for paying her dues, putting up with all of Bill's philandering all these years? Do, I want to make it up to her for leaving her in the lurch for Barack back in 2008? Or do I want to go with my heart and reward the only guy in my lifetime who has run for the highest office in the land as a Democrat who had the guts to admit his Socialism?

If I were a Republican, the decision would be harder. Do I vote for who I believe would make the best President, or do I vote for the candidate who I believe stands the best chance to defeat Trump? Here's how that process would work for me:

First, I would eliminate everyone from the lower tier of candidates who have zero chance of winning.

Goodbye Huckabee, Santorum, and Gilmore.

Then I would nix all those candidates who just rub me the wrong way. Its not their fault really, its just something weird about them that I can't quite get passed...nothing personal.

Goodbye Jeb Bush and John Kascich.

I think that leaves me with five alternatives to the Donald. At this point, I will temporarily eliminate Ted Cruz in favor of the four candidates who I believe would actually make decent Presidents. All of them have flaws, none of them are perfect. But as I trudge through the snow storm, through the corn field to the Caucus site, I remind myself that the choice I have to make very much requires me to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I must balance the good against the bad to make the best out of what are my available alternatives. Therefore, I reason thusly...

Rand Paul. The only candidate from either party who seems totally committed to smaller government.

Carly Fiorina. She has actual business acumen, rather than the inherited kind. I like her intelligence.

Chris Christie. Tough gig, being a Republican governor of a state like Jersey. Like his style and the way he handles himself in a debate.

Marco Rubio. Like his youth, vigor, and intelligence. LOVE his back story and how his deep love and appreciation for this country always shines through.

Of these four, today, Feb. 1st, 2016, as an Iowan who is voting for who I think would ultimately make the best President, I would go with Marco Rubio.

But, if my primary motivation was doing whatever I had to do to end the Trumpian nightmare, on this night...I would vote for Ted Cruz. He seems best positioned to win...tonight.

I'll deal with the potential Ted Cruz nightmare later!

February 7th. the Toilet Bowl...

If I were tasked with coming up with a list of the all-time worst opening sentences for a blog, this would surely be at or near the top:

".......Today I had an appointment with a Gastorintestinal Specialist."

So, I apologize in advance for what follows. Yes, it's true, I did have an appointment with a Gastrointestinal Specialist, a Dr. William Brand, or GI Bill, for short. Nice guy. Knowledgable and pleasant, in a Dr. Rodgers sort of way. I found that he spent a lot of time finishing my sentences for me, as if he knew that the subject at hand was difficult to talk about, so part of his job was helping me talk through the gross parts...and all of it are the gross parts. But GI Bill got me through it with my dignity intact. 

GI Bill stressed the importance of scheduling a colonoscopy as soon as possible. I agreed and promised to sit down with his scheduler on my way out. Before I knew what was happening, I had a 6:30 AM appointment penciled in for Monday the 8th of February, compete with explicit instructions of what I needed to do in the 24 hours prior to my big day. From daybreak on Sunday morning, the 7th, I am to have an all-liquid diet consisting of water, coffee, jello, Popsicles, chicken broth and the like. At 5 pm on Sunday, I am to start drinking one 8oz. glass of PEG 3350 every 15 minutes until half of the gallon jug is gone. I was assured by GI Bill that the lemon flavoring that comes with the concoction makes the experience, "not nearly as horrible as it used to be." I thought of the great line from Julius Caesar, " damning with faint praise..."

Then the instructions take a sudden, darker turn with this beauty..."at 10pm, resume drinking one 8oz. glass every 15 minutes until the gallon container is empty...if you experience nausea, slow your intake! No way! If I start experiencing nausea, I'm gonna pound the rest of the jug all at once!! Morons...

As disconcerting as all of this was, I had made my peace with the inevitable when I got back to the office and called Pam to fill her in on the plan. It was then when she reminded me that my appointment was Monday, Feb. 8th. The day after the Super Bowl!! That's right, sports fans, my 24 hours of all liquid hell will be taking place on one of the most delicious days of the year. While the rest of you will be throwing back nachos, pizza, Italian sandwiches, meatballs, bacon, cheese, bratwurst, hot sausages,  and washing it all down with beer, I'll be chowing down on six different flavors of jello. About the time all of you will be enjoying the Super Bowl...Ill be getting intimately acquainted with the Toilet Bowl!

But, GI Bill assures me that this procedure can't wait until the Spring. No no...it must be done right away. So, looks like I'll be having an all liquid diet Super Bowl experience.

That's just how I roll.

Falwell Endorses Trump?

Alright kids, the 2016 Presidential election has now entered the Twilight Zone. I mean, it's been weird for quite a while already, but today the weirdness quotient went through the roof. The President of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Donald Trump for President of the United States of America.

That's the rough equivalent of saying something like, "Billy Graham announced today from his deathbed that back in 1955 he had an inappropriate relationship with Fidel Castro," or "Famous leftist actor Sean Penn today gave his enthusiastic endorsement to Mike Huckabee's candidacy."

Ok, Liberty University is the largest Christian University in the Cosmos. It's core mission is to provide quality education to young skulls full of mush with a biblical worldview. That particular perspective takes a dim view of stuff like divorce, and abortion, vices like gambling and pornography, and encourages it's students to askew the lure of money and materialism as the be all and end all of life. So...the school's President comes out with a full-throated endorsement of a man who is on his third wife, has been pro-choice all of his natural life, has made his living building casinos, and has carefully crafted for himself an unparalleled reputation as the very definition of materialistic excess. Wait...what?

Now listen, I understand that Christians can disagree when it comes to politics. Heck, I disagree with my own kids about politics all the time, so I get it. And I also know, that when we as citizens enter the voting booth, we are not electing a Sunday School teacher. We often have to make a pragmatic choice between two flawed candidates, neither of whom we would want anywhere near a Sunday School class. Many times it comes down to...who will do the least harm?

But, as a Christian, a man's character has to enter into the calculus, does it not? The things that this man has said over the past six months of this campaign have been staggering. How can someone who claims to live by Christian principles fail to hear the thinly veiled racism in his remarks about Mexicans? Shouldn't any self-respecting Christian cringe when they hear a candidate for the Presidency mocking the disabled? What should go through the mind of a Christian father and husband when they hear Mr. Trump talking about how smoking hot his daughter is and how if he were a little younger and, you know, NOT HER DAD, maybe he would date her? More importantly, how should someone like Jerry Falwell Jr. feel when he hears a man who has been a party to two failed marriages and four bankruptcies say that he can't ever remember asking God for forgiveness for anything since he doesn't think he's ever done anything that required it?

One more thing that bothers me about not only the Falwell endorsement, but the many other evangelical leaders who have warmed to Trump...since when did "Making America Great Again" become a project of Christianity? Don't misunderstand me, I love my country, and like any other American, I want it to be better. But the primary focus of the Christian faith is not to make America better, it's to make people better, by introducing them to the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. Hopefully, properly discipled Christians will become better people, more caring, more courageous and  better citizens. But if Making America Great involves chasing after some nationalistic renewal built upon hatred, envy and ego, then count me out.

Sure, when I vote, I try to elect people who share my spiritual ethics. Sometimes it's easier than others. But generally speaking, I don't go out of my way to vote for someone who's entire life has been a living, breathing rebuke to biblical Christianity. Especially when there are still so many other alternatives from which to pick.

So, when I see someone as influential as Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsing Donald Trump, I wonder...how much money did the Trumpster promise Liberty University?

The Fridge of Fame

First day back at the office aft the big snow weekend was super busy. By 3:00 I was tight as a drum so I went to the gym for a workout. When I got home, I noticed that my wife had spent part of the day updating and organizing the Fridge of Fame. What am I talking about? It's an entire side of our refrigerator that's full of pictures in little magnetized clear frames. It looks like this...

It's a long story. Many years ago, I was involved in the youth group at my church. I taught boys Sunday School, and other coed bible studies for the better part of ten years. Along the way, Pam and I got close to quite a few of those kids. Somewhere along the way, I started collecting senior pictures from some of my favorites whenever they graduated. I set up a little competition among them to see which ones could earn a spot on the coveted Fridge of Fame. When large, unruly mobs of them would descend upon our house on summer nights, they would fight with each other about where they were in the lineup. There's almost 70 senior pictures up there now, along with pictures of their children now. It's an amazing sight. Every so often Pam reorganizes it, because it gets messy. But we've never considered taking it down. 

When I go downstairs to get something to eat late at night, I often stop and look at this kids. I say a quick prayer for some of them who are struggling, I thank God for their successes. But mostly, I just feel grateful that I was given the opportunity to share life with them when they were all just kids trying to figure things out. I hope I was able to help some of them.

I know that they helped me.

Snowmageddon...Part Six

Sunday, January 24, 8:24am. 

Officially tired of posting this picture. As soon as I'm done with breakfast, Pam and Lucy and I will venture out to walk and play and measure the stuff. Then it will be time to shovel for the second time. Around 11:00 yesterday I cleared the front steps and sidewalk. Last night at 10:00 it looked like this when I opened the front door:

No church today. Got the email last night. 

I posted this photograph on my Facebook wall this morning. It moved me more than I can express. Here we all are making snow angels and sipping hot cocoa while at the tomb of the unknown soldier, this is happening. This soldier, with a thin pair of wool gloves and nothing covering his ears from the brutal wind and snow, keeps watch. In this age of celebrity worship, reality television presidential candidates, and abject national silliness, there are still men and women like this. Duty, honor, respect still have the capacity to inspire, don't they?

The greatest thing about this storm has been the fact that every meal I've eaten since lunch on Friday has contained sausage. My wife is amazing. She knows that one of the few tools she has in the battle against my antsiness and cabin fever is...food. Wise woman, she is. However, delicious sausage not withstanding, I have informed her that I will be driving out of here today. She sighed heavily and smiled. 

Snowmageddon...Part Five

Saturday afternoon, January 23, 4:09 pm.

Around 5 hours ago I shoveled a lane from my back door to the patio so Lucy wouldn't have to trudge through a foot of snow on her way to do her business. Now all that work is covered by a foot of freshly fallen snow and the drifting of a thousand winds. Although I haven't ventured out with a tape measure, my eyes tell me that there is over a foot on the ground.

Many of you know me quite well, and for those who do, I'm sure you're wondering how I am managing my well-known cabin fever attacks. An excellent question. The truth is that it hasn't been too bad so far. I can, however, feel it coming on. At some point I will insist on taking Pam's car out to Martins for something that I will convince myself we desperately need. Why Pam's car? Well, I may be antsy, but I'm no idiot!

Up to this point I have fought off my cabin fever with stuff like this: 

Yes, I think I may have had just a bit too much fun with this one!

I took a nap earlier and while I was asleep my wife embarked on another one of her tidying up campaigns. She completely reorganized the cookware cabinets to accommodate her new cast iron skillets. Then she had time left over to set a "snow table" overlooking our front yard: 

Rumor has it that she is planning some sort of afternoon dessert consisting of the left over waffles from breakfast and vanilla ice cream. 

So, yeah, everything is positively idyllic around here. But all of this lovely vibe will vanish into thin air the very second we lose power, so I guess I better relax and enjoy it while I can!

Snowmageddon...Part Four

Saturday morning, January 23, 8:04am.

Looks like about 9 inches out there. Overnight the snow became sleet...lots of sleet. There's a 20 inch deep pile of it at my front door where it gathers after it slides down the roof. The Donald Trump of weather forecasting, DT Tolleris of Wxrisk.com, has been forced to issue a mea culpa this morning. Apparently, all of the local TV weather guys who had been warning of the sleet transition all week...the very same guys who DT was calling "losers and idiots"(sound familiar?) ended up being right. So, we will not be getting two feet of snow after all. 

We learned something new about Lucy last night. To the long and tortured list of things which she is deathly afraid of can be added...sleet tingling against windows.

So, last night she's laying at our feet on the bed like normal when all of a sudden a gust of wind blew a sheet of sleet against the windows of our bedroom. Immediately she jumped off the bed and ran into the closet. Eventually she made her way back on the bed during the night, when in the midst of a rather loud hail of sleet, we were awakened by a shivering puppy trying to burry her head under our pillows! 

This morning, the sleet has stopped and the old girl has had a romp in the backyard and all is well. Waffles and sausage links are cooking for breakfast, and at some point I'm going to have to venture outside to dig us out.

Be safe everyone.

Snowmageddon....Part Three.

 4:17 pm. 

There has been a flurry of activity over the past five hours, if you get my drift. Thanks, Snowbama!

Pam has made cookies.

The fixins for sausage and lentil soup are being prepared.

The wind is starting to blow. When you look outside its hard to tell how much of what is coming down is snow and how much is just snow blowing off of the roof. Either way, the stuff is starting to pile up. At some point Lucy is going to need to venture out into it for her first pee trip since 6:30 this morning. So far she has shown zero interest. I guess we'll soon discover just how strong her bladder actually is.

Speaking of politics...I wonder which Presidential candidate would be most likely to volunteer to shovel my driveway?

Bernie Sanders.....too old, might throw out his back.

Hillary Clinton....not a chance, although she might ask Huma to take a shot at it.

Martin O'Malley...would jump at the chance! Only he would insist on stripping to the waist and asking me to get a shot of his rock hard abs and post it on his Facebook page.

Jeb Bush....wouldn't know how.

Chris Christie...would collapse of a heart attack

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz would fight each other over who gets to shovel my driveway.

Rand Paul wouldn't want to insult my intelligence by stooping to such pandering.

Donald Trump would promise to shovel my driveway, but would end up sending over a couple of Honduran day laborers to do it.

Snowmageddon...Part Two

10:54am. 

After a mere 30 minutes of snow, the creeping white death begins to pile up.

Ever notice how no matter how often we remember to take care of our bird friends during bad weather, they never reciprocate? When was the last time a few yellow breasted finches dropped a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread on your front steps? What we have here is a one sided relationship. With the birds it's always, take, take, take. It reminds me of the problems we are having with our welfare state. These birds have grown quite accustomed to their largesse. They expect it now. Whenever I let the feeder go empty for a couple of days, they line up on the deck rail out there, all facing towards the house squawking up a storm...."To heck with this early-bird crap, we want our sunflower seeds...NOW!" Then, a few minutes later a couple of crows fly up and get the rest of them even more riled up. They are probably the union agitators of the bird world. Before you know it, little wrens and swallows and such are flitting around the windows dropping twigs all over the deck, and now the protests start sounding more organized.."What do we want??....FREE SEED!!...When do we want it??...NOW!!!" It becomes apparent how things are going to work. I mean, I saw that Hitchcock movie. I cave and give them what they want. I don't want any trouble. Especially today.

Snowmageddon...Part One

What follows is my record of events on this, the 22nd of January in the year of our Lord 2016, the day when the world went white. Snowmageddon. Snowopolis...many clever names have been carelessly thrown about by heartless scolds on the Internet. But I am here to bear witness that...the horror is real. In this blog, I will attempt to record for posterity what it was like to experience, and hopefully survive the monster storm. To all of you fighting the elements along with me...Godspeed!

7:30am. 

Ok, it hasn't started snowing yet, but a "before" picture seemed prudent. Notice that I have filled the bird feeder. My bird-loving son-in-law will be impressed. Also notice that my neighbor has left his car outside facing the wrong way in his driveway. Very poor storm preparation. Also notice that the umbrella at my deck table is still in the fully upright position. Geeze. That's embarrassing.

7:30am. 

Pam has wisely stocked the pantry and fridge with all the essentials. The really good stuff is in the fridge out in the garage.

8:26am. Made it into the office.

Still not snowing.

Despite pending arrival of deadliest snowstorm of this century, greedy Wall Street money-changers still chasing mammon! "Inside the cloud" headline darkly ironic.

                                                ...To Be Continued....

Five Years of Opinions

This month marks the beginning of my sixth year writing this blog. Five years is a long time. I've written an awful lot about a lot of things. Although I can't say that I've learned something, I can say that I'm in the process of learning something about myself...and that is that not every idea that pops into my head deserves an audience. Not every argument that is born in the fever swamps of my imagination needs to be aired, not every thought that bubbles up in the tar pits of my mind comes to me fully formed, not every opinion holds up to the glare of public scrutiny. Self-censorship is a learned skill which requires lots of practice.

My wife probably wishes that I was better at it. Sometimes I write about things that cause her no small degree of discomfort. She will say, "Are you sure you should say that about that when you know that so and so reads your blog?" To which, I usually reply either, "Actually, I never thought about it," or more often..."So?? If so and so doesn't like it, they can start their own blog."

But I am getting better at this whole self-censorship thing. Just yesterday I saw something on the internet that some self-loathing white liberal academic had written trying to assuage her industrial strength guilt, maligning white people for having the gall to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Maybe two, three years ago I would have taken the bait. But this time I just let it go. The much hyped national conversation on race doesn't need my take on the matter. 

Of course, sometimes I can't resist. I hear nonsense coming out of the mouth of some politician, and before I know what hit me I've just published a thousand word takedown chocked full of sarcasm and vitriol. Or, even worse, some alleged Christian pastor somewhere tries to raise money from the widows in his church so he can purchase a private jet, and within minutes my iPad is smoking hot. Interestingly enough, the blogs that are born out of white hot anger are by far the most satisfying to write. It's insanely fun to obliterate an idiot.

Of course, over the past five years I have benefited greatly from two unpaid editors, the sainted Denise Roy and my long suffering wife. Between the two of them, I get lots of texts and emails that go something like this:

"Ok, remember...it's either/or, neither/nor!!" 

" Pretty sure you meant to say you're instead of your"

" You wrote, take your shorts. Did you mean to say, take your shots?"

Five years has flown by. Here's hoping that five years from now President Trump hasn't outlawed blogging.



Ps. Click those ads people!!!

Diva Dog

Regular readers are aware that my dog Lucy is...special. Over this past year and a half I have regaled you with stories of her bizarre psychosis, strange obsessions and general quirkiness. Now this...

The past few nights have brought very cold temperatures, this morning it is 14. Our backyard has consequently frozen over to the point where walking on the grass produces a crunching sound. Lucy's designated peeing-ground having been so befouled, she now refuses to leave the deck...without escort...regardless of how badly she needs to go. So, this morning there I was at 6:30, in pajamas, slippers and my winter coat, coaxing her off the deck out into the frozen tundra of her yard. She took a few tentative steps on the patio, then cautiously made her way into the grass. When she heard the crunching sounds beneath her paws, she began tip-toeing along like she was walking on glass. It reminded me of those videos of dogs trying to walk with shoes on. After several hilarious hops and leaps we finally made it to the four foot wide border of mulch at the back fence...her go-to urinal. Being a girl, she made several attempts at squatting, but each time she thought better of it, withdrew the offer and began searching anew for a more amenable location to relieve herself. Meanwhile, I realize that wearing pajamas in 14 degree weather might not have been my best decision.

Me: Lucy, for crying out loud. Go already!

Lucy: But Dad...the ground is frozen.

Me: Yeah? That's kinda what happens in winter. Deal with it!

Lucy: But the crunching sound scares me.

Me: Everything scares you.

Lucy: Not everything.

Me: Name one thing that doesn't scare you!!

Lucy: Peanut butter. I'm not afraid of peanut butter.

Me: True.

Well, OK, we didn't actually have this conversation because Lucy can't talk. But if she could this is exactly the type of conversation we would have! Me trying to shame her into doing her business, and her making ridiculously lame excuses. Instead, I stood there freezing while she methodically sniffed out the ideal square inch of pee-worthy real estate. Once she finally finished, she hopped, skipped and jumped back across the yard toward the deck. At the top of the deck steps there is a mat which is still covered in unmelted snow from Sunday. Lucy hesitated, would not step on the mat...preferring to tip-toe around it.

There is a word for this sort of behavior....Diva.

*** WOOF !!!

Today is Monday. Richmond's meteorologists great and small are already salivating over what they are calling an historic snowstorm bearing down on us...this weekend. Why, something called the European model is predicting 22 inches of the stuff. My favorite wolf crier is the dude on the internet who runs the aptly named website...Wxrisk.com. His latest forecast starts in all ALL CAPS thusly:

***ALERT!!!** WOOF  !! MAJOR SNOWSTORM---possibly HISTORIC SNOWSTORM JAN. 22-23

Upon further inquiry I discover that the term WOOF is one of six such designations used to breathlessly describe potential snowfall. It's all a part of an elaborate system whereby Wxrisk.com hypes winter weather. Six different alerts are used, color coded with lots of asterisks and exclamation points. Specifically, WOOF means: significant snowstorm likely which may reach major snowstorm criteria. In case you're wondering what constitutes a major snowstorm, wonder no longer: belly high to a tall dog.

It's exactly this sort of precise scientific language that attracts me to Wxrisk.com. If cool detachment, detailed model maps, and a "just the facts, ma'am" presentation is what you're looking for in your weather forecasts, well then, Andrew Freiden will do. But if you long for meteorological trash talking, hyped headlines and spittle-flying invective, look no further than Wxrisk.com.

Maybe this time they will all be right, maybe there will be historic amounts of the white stuff. If so, at least we got a five day head start on stocking up on bread, eggs and milk. But if, as I expect, we end up with a dusting because the El Niño track inexplicably veered south at the last minute, or the vortex of high level winds were not nearly strong enough to produce enough moisture to sustain the solar flex movement required...or some other ass-covering language that Wxrisk.com will employ to explain his busted forecast,...I won't be surprised.

The Stylish Connoisseur

Pam and I bought furniture yesterday. We were about to buy the exact same furniture back in June when our AC unit stopped working. We decided that air conditioning, over the summer, in Short Pump, was a greater priority. We caught everything on sale and actually saved some money over what we would have paid last year.

I have always wanted a library in my house...and now I have one. We have a seldom used living room which has now been transformed into a beautiful, old money looking library, complete with two new chairs, gorgeous, richly detailed bookcases complete with one of those sliding ladders, and a wonderful writing desk. When it all gets delivered, I'll share pictures.

I was telling one of my nieces who has two little ones how it never really stops...these money-spending demands that life makes of us. Back when we had kids in the house, we couldn't have nice things. Turns out our mothers were right. First of all, with two kids we couldn't afford nice things, but even if we could have, what would have been the point? It would have taken all of two days before one of them would have thrown up all over that beautiful Persian rug. And I'm sorry, all of the overpriced Scottsguard treatments in the world would have been useless against one of my kids' Spaghettios-fueled projectile vomit performances!!

But now the kids are all grown. Their incessant demands for every spare dime of my capital have ended. So now, all that money I thought I would be banking is now flying out of my wallet even faster than it was back when they had crooked teeth. I have a new Downton Abbey-esk library!

About the time we were about to pay for it all I noticed for the first time the marketing slogan for the particular line of furniture we were buying. I have no idea why I never noticed it before because it
was in plain view on all of their signs and whatnot:

Van Buren...for the stylish connoisseur.

I almost called the whole thing off. What a horrible, elitist slogan. I am neither a connoisseur of fine furniture nor very stylish, for that matter....and Martin Van Buren was a terrible President! Oh well.

Of course now buyers' remorse has set in. From now on, The Tempest will be written at my stylish new writing desk, surrounded by richly carved bookcases and handsomely detailed chairs. Will the influence of such finery affect my writing? Will I find myself writing sentences filled with French words like...connoisseur? Good Lord, I hope not. If you, the reader, start detecting excessive high browery, too much reliance on flowery metaphors, and a preoccupation with inheritance taxes...feel free to complain!

Oh...and to help me replenish my newly depleted savings account, please click on one of these ads!!

The Debate

There was a debate last night. I watched it sparingly, in fits and starts. I would hang in for five or ten minutes then go back to reading. It's always this way for me with debates. They are hard to watch. They agitate me, rile me up in a counter-productive way. With everything else going on in my life right now, I don't need to be riled. At this point, I would settle for a couple three days without malfunctioning intestines...but that's another story that will never be told on this or any other blog!

A few observations about last night...

John Kasich's hands look like they are being controlled by a deranged puppeteer on uppers.

Marco Rubio seems to think that he will win if he speaks faster. It's as if he believes that he's being paid by the word. He says smart things, for the most part, even eloquent things...but he spits his sentences out like bullets from an AK47. Slow down buddy. Take a breath!

Ted Cruz annihilated Donald Trump on the issue of his eligibility to run for President. Come to think of it, Cruz did a lot of annihilating last night. I don't particularly care for the strident tone he often takes, but clearly this guy has the chops to be President. He has a lazer sharp mind, thinks fast on his feet. His biggest problem is he's the smartest guy in practically every room he enters...and he knows it, often an off-putting combination. 

Chris Christie is the tough love Dad of this group. It's hard to find fault with much of what he says, and he handles himself well in this format. But there isn't enough oxygen left in the room after Trump and Cruz enter. Not his time.

Jeb Bush. Poor, nervous, pleading, nerdy Jeb Bush, he of the record breaking money raising operation and the Presidential pedigree. He can't seem to get past the impression that he's a low energy, entitled, government technician who desperately wants to be liked by the cool kids, but somehow can't break through. The way he always tilts his head upward when he speaks seems so hopelessly patrician. He has all the charisma of a throw pillow. Thing is, he would probably make a decent President. Painful to watch him flounder.

Ben Carson looks like the last man on the Titantic. At one point he spoke right after a five minute explosion of words and energy from Marco Rubio and the contrast was devastating. Good man. Horrible candidate.

Donald Trump was Donald Trump. His facial expressions when not speaking are petulant and childish. His answers are largely fact-free screeds, sentences that the brightest English majors in the country couldn't diagram if their lives depended on it. But he has two things going for him with our disaffected population...he's a funny, entertaining dude and he's the only one on the stage that doesn't look over-coached. He simply opens his big mouth and says what he thinks, all of it...unvarnished, un-poll tested, the world according to Donald. For more and more people, instead of appearing ill-prepared and unserious, it feels authentic and honest. Debate prep? That's only for "losers" who need pollsters to tell them what they believe. Here's what he believes...straight from the gut. If you don't like it, vote for the other guy.

So technically, Cruz won the debate in every measurable way except one....what voters think, which is...another win for The Donald.

Something Has Ended

I wish I could figure out what is going on. Do you ever look around and ask yourself how we have arrived at this point in our history? Is it just me? Nothing makes sense anymore. It feels like I am witnessing the end of something...and the beginning of something else, dark and menacing.

I have friends who are buying guns, scrambling to get concealed carry permits. It's like they are expecting some awful thing to happen, or maybe they think it's the cool thing to do. 

One of the leading Presidential candidates of my country has his name plastered on casinos all over the country, his own line of cologne, and has never held an elective office. Another is an avowed Socialist, 74 years old, and looks like a cross between Statler and Waldorf of the Muppets. 

I can now fill up my 16 gallon gas tank for the same amount of money it would cost to buy an entire barrel of crude oil. I pay twice as much for a gallon of milk as I do for a gallon of gas. I wonder why some democratic senator hasn't launched an investigation into big oil to get to the bottom of these dramatic price declines...since they do so every single time prices rise.

Large swaths of our population want millions of illegal immigrants literally swept up and deported, and a ginormous, impenetrable wall built to keep them out on our 1900 mile southern border. Another large swath of our population wants to pretend that millions of new immigrants pose absolutely zero security risk in this age of terrorism and even to suggest that it might proves that you're a racist.

A country who is about to have 150 billion dollars transferred to their national checking account from the United States this very week has the stones to fire a missile within a nautical mile of one of our destroyers, and commandeer and humiliate the crew of two of our patrol boats, the Geneva Convention violating photos and videos released to the world days before the transfer is scheduled to take place. Can anyone imagine the Iranians trying this crap with Russian sailors? Our State Department practically breaks it's arm patting the Iranians on the back for being so gracious about the whole thing. Someone my age watches all of this and shakes his head in fascination at our diminished statue.

A group of militia ranchers have taken over a Federal building in Oregon and been there for over a week now because a couple of their buddies got sent to prison for starting fires on some federal land. After fourteen days...they are still there.

Something has ended, and something else has begun.

Lucy and the State of the Union

I have taken my first sip of coffee. I have turned on the gas fireplace and settled on the sofa. I begin to read the news from overnight. I hear Lucy jump off the bed upstairs, then the harried, frantic sound she makes bounding down the stairs. In a graceful flash she leaps up to within a foot of my face, presenting me with this...

If she could speak, what is it that she is asking me...for this is assuredly a questioning face. Those eyes can burn holes through you. She is unrelenting in her staring powers. 

1. "Why so glum Dad? How about we go outside and wrestle?"

2. "You feel bad, don't you? You should eat something...how about a sock?"

Instead, I tell her she's a very good girl, then I scratch her belly. Soon, she leaps down and disappears back upstairs, having completed her mission. It's the same thing every single morning. She is dependable, true as the North Star. She simply must check on me and gauge my welfare each morning. Maybe it worries her how serious I become when I read the news. She probably wonders why I do it. She doesn't understand responsibility, she doesn't even know what I do for a living. All she knows is that every morning I look into my iPad screen and turn glum. Lucy doesn't do glum. She's a dog and therefore...glum-free.

This morning I read the President's SOTU speech. Yeah, I know...I could have watched it on TV last night. But, I haven't watched one since Bill Clinton vowed that the "Era of big government is over!" Don't think I've ever recovered from that bold-faced lie. Besides, the optics of the SOTU are infuriating to me, the grandstanding, the phony stagecraft, the blank faces of the Vice-President and the Speaker to either side of the President, the props that Presidents increasingly now bring with them and set in the gallery to illustrate some point. All of it is nauseating in a very bi-partisan way. I much prefer Thomas Jefferson's decision to send the SOTU to Congress in writing, which every President after him did until Woodrow Wilson started all of this anti-republican pagentry.  So, I read the speech. I have no comment on the thing other than the observation that it sounded odd to me that this President would bemoan the lack of civility in our politics one minute and then a minute later suggest that his political opponents are controlled by "hidden forces." So, apparently, for this President civility is defined as agreeing with him. Thanks for clearing that up!

Anyway, this was his last SOTU, and it sounded like it. All of the angst that Americans are feeling is the result of things that happened before he took office, in his telling, and every good thing that has happened over the last seven year, both actual good things and things that perhaps only he thinks are good, are due to his brilliant mind and pure heart. Fair enough. If I were the President and I was giving my last SOTU speech, I would have pitched it the same way. 

Still, had it been up to Lucy, I wouldn't even have read it. I would have been outside wrestling in the mud with her!

Angry Old Man?

For the past couple of days I have been savoring a new book, a collection of Peggy Noonan columns called The Time of our Lives. She and I have had a weekly appointment for the past twenty years or so. She publishes her syndicated column in the Wall Street Journal, and I read it. I never miss one. Ever. Ours is not a sycophantic relationship. We sometimes disagree. But her writing is so glorious, so wise, I simply cannot stay mad at her for long. If you were to ask me who I wish I could write like, my answer would be...Peggy.

But this blog is not about Peggy Noonan, but something she wrote, that when placed beside Mr. Ricky Gervais' performance last night at the Golden Globes demands comment.

Writing about the death of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Noonan said this:

"She had manners, the kind that remind us that manners spring from a certain moral view--that you do tribute to the world and the people in it by being kind and showing respect, by sending the note and the flowers, by being loyal and cheering a friend. She was a living reminder in the age of Oprah that personal dignity is always, still, an option, a choice that is open to you. She was, really, the last aristocrat. Few people get to symbolize a world, but she did, and that world is receding, and we know it and mourn that, too."

Ricky Gervais is certainly not the first person in show business to trade in the put down. I grew up watching Don Rickles skewering Hollywood types on the Johnnie Carson show. But, Don Rickles was constrained by the times he lived in. If he descended into foul mouthed F-Bomb throwing, he would have been finished. Not so Mr. Gervais.

I will not here catalogue the carnage from last night. You can Google it yourself. And honestly, part of me always enjoys any opportunity I get to watch the Hollywood elite get cut down to size, so for that I suppose I should thank him. But, as I watched his act and thought of Peggy Noonan's words, I became overcome with sadness.

Watching him playing for laughs the suggestion that an old man might come out on stage and perform a sexual favor on him...or yucking it up about what he uses his Golden Globe statuette for back home-- it is on his bedside table, after all-- is to be reminded anew that I live in a very different country than Jackie Kennedy did. While personal dignity might still be an option for us in 2016, fewer and fewer of us are taking it.

I find myself longing for grace and a touch of class now and then. I see a publically drunk Cameron Diaz and long for Grace Kelly. I see Kim Kardashian and dream of Audrey Hepburn. Was she even real? 

I suppose that this post makes me sound like the old guy yelling at the neighborhood kids to "get off my lawn!!" Fair enough. Not everything in 2016 American entertainment is bad, just as not everything about an older America is worthy of nostalgia. But, there is a coarseness today, a creeping meanness, where rudeness is mistaken for charisma. We see it in Hollywood and on the campaign trail. If manners and civility have somehow become bourgeois, and if they have been replaced by the ugly and garish...well, we are the worse for it. Sorry, not every hip new trend is worthy of celebration. Gervais, and those like him should shame us. And they would if we could remember what shame was.

Conviction Without Courage Is Cowardice

Conviction without courage is cowardice.

These words came to me last night as I was sitting in a Starbucks in Occoquan, Va. waiting for the traffic on 95 to die down. I was reading the Washington Post and then the New York Times, then my cellphone news feed...you have to wait a very long time for the traffic to die down in Occoquan.

There were stories of good people doing nothing while innocent people were victimized. There were stories of decent people being railroaded by a tiny contingent of malcontents demanding their way or the highway, dressed up bullying. Other stories spoke of learned men and women who should know better, giving in to the shrill, unhinged demands of pampered children whose combined life experiences could be shoehorned into a thimble. Everywhere, it seemed, loud and angry people were demanding this and that while beleaguered adults looked on helplessly unable or unwilling to push back. 

Some will say that the problem in our day is that we have lost our moral compass, having rejected absolute truth, having no longer a North Star, we have been set adrift in a sea of moral ambiguity. To which I say...bull****. Sure, maybe a few cloistered academics have fallen for the everything is relative claptrap, but the average Joe knows evil when he sees it. The problem is not that we have no convictions, the problem is that we have lost our confidence in them. Without the moral courage that convictions demand, we have become moral cowards, passive bystanders watching a small pack of losers taking over the world.

Then I read a story about the Trump campaign. He has opened his mouth at a campaign event and some fresh absurdity has proceeded out of it. But it hits me at a Starbucks in Occoquan that Donald Trump has captured lightning in a bottle. His seemingly fearless attack on political correctness, his willingness to say whatever he thinks, consequences be damned, resonates with a people who have grown accustomed to standing on the sidelines passively taking whatever the elites have dished out. Trump has given voice to the morally timid, the bystanders of modern life. They hear him saying harsh things, even rude, dehumanizing things...and it pulses with something that has slipped away from them over the last fifty years...power.

But if conviction without courage is cowardice, what is courage without conviction? Donald Trump may indeed have courage, but to what end? What exactly are his convictions? It's terribly hard to tell at this point. How would the man govern? Would he be conservative? Fiscally prudent? To his supporters does it even matter? For me, nothing could possibly matter more. For, although it is a good thing for a man to have courage, if not enlisted in the service of moral conviction yields terrible results. 

Two famous motivational speakers, Jim Rohn and Zig Ziglar used to debate what was more important, education or motivation? Zig would say, "You've got to motivate people first, Jim. You can always educate then later!" Jim would reply, "No Zig, if you motivate an idiot, all you will have is a motivated idiot who will arrive at disaster quicker!"

While conviction without courage is cowardice...courage without conviction is chaos.