In The Middle...

This is bringing me down. I have been drifting downward for a while (weeks?). I have lots of worries and they are starting to get to me. Is Trump a worry?  A little bit, yes. As far as away as I am, and as long as I have been away, America still matters to me. It matters especially when my other country (UK) seems to have also lost it way. I need to go for a walk.

Today is the day that the US House of Representatives will vote to Impeach Donald Trump for a second time. 

This week the USA suffered a constitutional crisis that is still ongoing. And I was given further evidence of my wife's very poor judgement. I mention the former, and spend some time on the latter.

Mike Pence has signed on with the 11 oe twelve lunatic Senators to overturn the electoral college. Hey, what else can happen?

The 2020 American Presidential election ended on 3 November. Enough of the votes had been counted by 7 November that electoral experts declared the winner to be Joe Biden. As the counting (and in several cases recounting) moved forward, Biden's lead in the popular vote increased to the point that today I believe the difference between Biden and Trump is roughly eight million votes.  More importantly, the difference in Electoral College votes is 306 for Biden and 232 for Trump. The winner is the one who achieves 270 Electoral votes. Biden is the clear winner. But the Trumpers aren't quitting.  The loss of some 55 legal cases across several states has not been enough to make them quit. A 9-0 Supreme Court decision (in fact, a humiliating dismissal) has not been enough to make them quit. The Rule of Law has now been stretched to breaking. Last night Trumpers fought with Anti-Trumpers on the streets of several American cities. People were hurt.  Trump is not a political figure. He's a cult leader.  I think it's time to hope that America finds someone with the selfless courage and moral clarity to put a stop to this lunacy.

This Buddhist concept ultimately means: we are all in this together. We are all responsible. Everything matters. It can be parsed and simplified as, to quote the Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron has put it: [There is] No Escape. Donald Trump held one of his MAGA superspreader rallies in Georgia last night. I was sleeping in Poznań. Somehow there are connections. We may not see them; we may never see them. But somehow each of us bears some nuanced responsibility for Trump, for Brexit, for the Law and Justice party in Poland. There isn't anything that escapes being connected to everything else, and there isn't anything that escapes being connected to us.  The term is actually dependent origination, sometimes set out as dependent co-origination. Co-dependent Origination is just a tip of the hat to co-dependence. 

After briefly introducing the newest member of the household (my daughter's 10 week old kitten, Kira), I ask the question: "What do we do about Trump?"  The more poisonous problem, is: What do we do about Trumpism?" I think we need to do everything possible to eradicate all vestiges -- fumigate, Round-Up, Polonium 210, whatever it takes. I don't think we should be civil, caring, empathetic, understanding, or forgiving. I think we should throw the heaviest book we can find at Trump & Co, as a way of posting an indelible sign to the next person who tries anything similar that we will run him down and rip out his heart, and the hearts of his enablers and proxies, in public. It should be the modern equivalent of drawing and quartering. (After Guy Fawkes was drawn and quartered, I don't believe anyone else tried to blow up parliement."

Cold Cold Cold is the title of a 1972 song by the American (Southern) band Little Feat. They were one of the great bands of their time, though always slightly cultish. Every year about this time, I remember this song. Usually on the first snappishly cold day of the year. For me, the song itself sounds cold. Coldness in Poland is somewhat mythic. The Poles themselves take pride in thinking their country is frighteningly cold, and that they are exceptional rugged to live in such a place. But Poland is not Siberia. Most of Poland is a plain that stretches across Central Europe from central Germany until the edges of Belarus and Ukraine. It's cold -- especially if, like me, you come from California. But it aint that cold. Almost all of Canada, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and much of Massachusetts and New York etc, are colder. There is no comparison to the coldest colds of Chicagoland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas. And so on. So smile when a Pole tells you have much grit it takes to live in Poland.  Robert Gamble's funeral.  Dying in the time of coronavirus. 

Something I already knew: native peoples are often better than other peoples (including me). More magnanimous, more patient. 

A typical Thursday means:  I have a fight with Chris's school because they made a mistake and yet they want me to fix it. (Welcome to Poland.)  I trot over to the Internet Service Provider (called Orange) to arrange for new and better (and slightly cheaper) Internet service. It sounds too good to be true. I guess we will find out.  I go with my 11 year old son to his psychiatrist. He's been having loads of problems with what is called "oppositional" behaviour. Dr is good, attentive, caring. She adjusts Chris's meds and ask me, his teachers, his mother (basically everyone who watches him closely) to keep a log of his behaviour for two weeks.  The log should cover not only his fits of bad behaviour, but also how attentive he is, how careful, how patient, and how well he follows instructions.  Fingers crossed.