Surviving the first 100 days

Anyone who checks on this blog occasionally might notice there hasn't been the usual number of posts in recent months. Frankly it's a question I have been asking myself lately. I've never had much of a problem finding subjects to write about, largely because I have a wide range of interests that at times even interrelate, but in the recent past nothing has seemed to pop out as noteworthy enough. Why would that be? Well, it has been slow evolving but I think I have found the answer, one that is simple yet complicated, easy to summarize more difficult to separate into parts and analyze.

     The simple answer? Donald Trump. The complications? It's like a crack in a windshield that starts as a chip and spreads like a spider web until it blocks all vision forward.

     Not that there isn't lots to write about, but so many people are doing it, very little original gets said anymore. Anything I might write about has already been analyzed to death. I don't need to add to the confusion and redundancy. Plus from this distance even given the accessibility the internet provides I don't feel like I am close enough to the subject to say anything meaningful. Of course, that never stopped me before.

     Yet the issue and its immensity along with the emotions it engenders fills the mind to the elimination of any other distraction. It has taken hold of my mind and even ideas that come up seem inconsequential in the face of the immensity of the crime that is being perpetrated against our country. What do the birds at my feeders matter when day by day safeguards in regulations that have improved our lives are whittled away allowing the robber barons to pollute, violate and destroy at the expense of the majority of American citizens.

    What does a reverie at the wood pile or a playlist of old rock and roll on facebook matter when we learn Russian intelligence played a part in electing the most unqualified president this nation has ever had. It calls to mind something painted on a fence surrounding the construction site of a controversial classroom at Syracuse University in 1960. "What does it mean in the infinite scheme?"

     Who cares about a clever turn of phrase in a headline or a grammatical gaff by a sports announcer when arch conservatives, racists, ignoramuses and other totally unqualified  people take over every department in the administration of our government.

     Moreover what does it matter if I add my two cents to the maelstrom?  The maelstrom is huge and it's full. I realized that during my last two ventures to the East Pole. I only get one radio station there, a function of geology, and it is a public radio station broadcasting from the nearest town. I keep it on for the noise, but I often catch interesting programs. However since this election it at least seems like every program is some pundit or other analyzing something that is going on with this president and his cohorts. Most of them don't say anything of any value, just struggle for different ways to put out the same old statements that I could have made myself without their input. Then one day, I had too much of it. I actually screamed across the cabin "shut the fuck up."  You can do that sort of thing in the woods; it's that old saw about if no one's around is there a sound.

     After that as soon as another program like that came on I hustled across the room and turned the radio off, and lived in the peaceful silence for a while.

    But even in silence, the feeling persisted that nothing seemed worth writing about given the situation in our country. I couldn't and still can't escape the thoughts churning in my mind.

   They range from the ridiculous to the sublime. For instance I have nothing against Milania, I see her as an innocent in this drama, dragged into it through no fault of her own. But I do not want her living in our White House, the household led in grace by the likes of Jacqueline Kennedy, Michelle Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, She just doesn't belong. Of course paying obscene  amounts of taxpayer money so she can live away from the White House in New York is unacceptable as well.

    Then there's the man whose company will profit greatly by one of the biggest oil deals ever, and with Russia no less, and is now the secretary of State.  Both of Alaska's senators voted for him too, despite what his company's ship the Exxon Valdez did to Alaska. An avowed racist is the Attorney General. A woman who never set foot in a public school or had any other experience with education outside being a student in an expensive private school is now the secretary of Education. That doesn't even begin to address the outrage now that a dangerous foe of the Environmental Protection Agency is now the head of it.

     And those are the things that have happened. What's coming is even worse. As a senior citizen almost entirely dependent on Medicare and Social Security (which I have paid into for more than 50 years) I am deathly afraid of losing those as are several million of my contemporaries. Twenty million others who now have health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act face losing it as well. National Parks are threatened. The oceans, climate change and its deniers, the general attack on intelligence and knowledge, on science, even attempting to wipe out records gained through extensive research. Employees expecting to be terminated actually attempted to save precious scientific research as if an invading army were approaching. And then there's the outrage of denying people entry because of their religion at the same time rounding up residents and tearing families apart through deportations. When will they start coming for each one of us?

    It has been overwhelming at least to my small mind. I have been so consumed with the politics of our country and yet feeling insufficient in any way I might be able to do something about it or at least write about it. It's frustrating. In one moment of lucidity I donated $100 to the ACLU to at least help someone who is actually performing. I had another one today. My facebook feed is filled with news sites and political sites and I realized they are blocking out some of the other sites I like and that have often stimulated ideas. I might do some clearing out tomorrow.

   Over the years of fighting over one social issue or another I learned that you cannot fight them all; you pick the one most important to you and hope somebody else is going after the other ones. But this one is different. Like the crack in the windshield it has so many tendrils branching in so many directions you have to wonder if anybody can visualize the whole scenario. At that point when you feel alone in your fight, well, I always think of something Sam Huff said once. He was a linebacker for the New York Giants during the age of the greatest running back of all time Jim Brown. Brown was known as a punishing runner, the kind where when you tackle him you get hurt, not him. Asked how he tackles Jim Brown, Sam Huff, who was known as a brutalizing tackler, said, "I aim at his belt buckle and hope three other guys are doing the same thing."
     So, the upshot is I think I have figured out what has me slowing down in the writing department. A psychiatrist might say now that we know the problem we can build from there. By the looks of it I have a better chance of surviving this administration's first 100 days than at least a few people who are part of it. One down already. Watch this space.

How can anyone keep track?