When James Taylor wrote Steamroller Blues in 1970, I’m sure he didn’t have any idea he was describing a future presidential candidate. Here is what he had to say about that future candidate.
He’s a steamroller.
He’s a napalm bomb.
He’s a churning urn of burning junk.
He’s a demolition derby.
He’s a hefty hunk of steaming bunk.
Two words were changed for clarity, the rest was all Taylor’s prescience.
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I’m writing this the morning of November 5, Election Day. Tonight I will be watching election returns from Democratic Headquarters in downtown Seattle. If at any point from now going forward, Trump claims election fraud, that simply means he knows he lost the Electoral vote. Period.
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I’m writing this the day before Election Day. This is the most important election in my lifetime, perhaps even in our nation’s lifetime.
I’m nervous, but also scared about what potentially lies ahead for our country. There are people in our country that are willing to commit acts of violence if their candidate does not win the election. It’s as simple as that. Saying an election was stolen from you without providing proof (court decisions supporting that conclusion) is not only an act of insurrection against our laws and our Constitution, it is also immoral and cowardly.
There is nothing more to be said. If you loose, go home. If your party is tired of losing, perhaps it should change its platform and policies.
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Any candidate that claims to have lost the election before Election Day or claims that there has been election fraud is a coward and a thief.
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Our country has become completely untethered from its history. I do not understand how that has happened. The reasons are many of course, but I think it comes down to greed and anger. The failure of both parties to work together to serve the needs of the populace is also a major contributor to the climate we find ourselves in.
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Trump projects himself on everyone else. The evil he sees around him is nothing more than the evil within himself that he is unable to own.
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Since 2015, when Trump decided he wanted to be President and started his take-over of the Republican Party, he has said many terrible things. What is the worst? That would be hard to say. Occasionally, we all say things that are not exactly “perfect” in every way, myself included. But in the case of Donald Trump, The terrible rhetoric only gets worse. As distasteful as this task was, I decided to share a couple of examples of what I’m talking about. I do not endorse speech like this, I post it here as an example of why we should not allow someone this morally depraved to lead us.
”I would bring back waterboarding. And I’d bring back a he’ll of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
”I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”
One last quote. In case there is an question in your mind what he is capable of…
”IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
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“A leader must always remember these three: First, that he leads men. Second, that he leads according to the law. Third, that he will not lead forever.” —Agathon
Trump’s journey to the White House has been one that Agathon would have a difficult time comprehending. Trump is not a leader. It would be a poor choice to use him as an example of good leadership, or even being a good man. He is unable to follow the law. He has no intention of leaving the White House should he be elected and take office for a second term. There is a distinct possibility that he is planning to take the White House, should he lose the election, either by force or by chicanery. The ancient Greeks understood better than a lot of us what is required to be a good leader.
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I saw something peculiar today. The car in front of me had two bumper stickers on it. The first bumper sticker read, “I stand with Israel.” The second bumper sticker read, “Trump 2024.” How in the world do those two things go together? The last thing Donald Trump will do will be to stand with Israel. He will stand with a person, as long as that person is himself, or perhaps that person is someone that is giving him money.
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You know you’re in rural America when you drive through a middle-class neighborhood and every third driveway has a travel trailer parked in it. Also, on October 31 every third house has inflatable Halloween decorations.
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An open letter to Trump. You are a criminal and have no business calling yourself an “American.”
Come and get me. I dare you.
Of course, the irony here is that his speech goes to great length to point out whom he thinks is and isn’t an American. So in some way, you might say I have fallen victim to his perverted brainwashing.
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I cancelled my Amazon Prime membership. Jeff Bezos is a coward.1
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He refused to let the Washington Post endorse a presidential candidate. He’s afraid of Donald Trump. ↩︎
I fixed dinner for my sweetheart the other night. After we finished eating she said it was very good, but she had one comment for me. She told me that in the future she would like to dress the salad herself. She explained that she prefers her salad undressed or only lightly dressed. I said that’s odd, that’s how I prefer my woman.
If you find this story crude, I don’t blame you. My only excuse is that I’m just following the new societal norms being established by the Republican Party, and in particular by their leader.
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Today is the most important day in our Nation’s history.
Today, and over the course of the next 100 days, we will find out what our President and those who want to be president are made of.
General John Kelly speaking at Mount Vernon about General George Washington’s greatest contribution to our nation, summed up that contribution in three words: “He went home.”
Any President that has served his term in office should do just that, leave office. Any aspiring candidate that looses an election should do the same. It is un-American to do anything else.
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True leadership, from General and President George Washington to commanders in the modern military always follows this credo:
“Listen, learn, and help, then lead.”
For those of us not so fortunate to be leaders (or fortunate, depending on your perspective) we should always follow a similar credo, with slight modification:
“Listen, learn, and absorb, then act.”
This applies whether we are learning to play Pickleball or talking to a friend on the phone. It applies to everything we do.
Note: The latter credo never releases us from the obligation to be helpful.
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Time does not march uniformly forward.
Sometimes it takes giant steps back.
Like now.
Plato would be appalled,
or not.
He understood how fragile was
the rule of man.
Plato understood the need for laws.
More importantly, for laws to govern,
he understood that man needed respect
for a higher law.
Call it Got, call it faith, call it belief,
it doesn’t matter, without that respect,
laws are empty vessels.
It is ironic
that those who chatter the loudest
about the need to follow a higher law
are the first to subvert
the only law that is capable
of letting us live in harmony
on this earth.
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Plato’s Republic is his most famous political work, but it is in his Laws, largely overlooked by scholars, that Plato identifies the key ingredient in what is needed to make a successful and enduring Democracy. ↩︎
I wish I could write poems
like Ogden Nash.
I’d spit them out in a flash.
The only difference between his and mine,
his would be good, mine would be trash.
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My Dad taught me:
Red at night, sailor’s delight.
Red in the morning, sailor take warning.
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The only good ideas I get, I get when I am writing.
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I have wronged someone but I don’t know how to apologize. There is something wrong with me. I should be able to make this right, but I can’t.
I’m going to hazard a guess. I think the reason I may not be able to face this situation is because I feel inferior. That’s crazy, right? It’s even possible the person I have wronged doesn’t believe that to be the case. Even still, I believe that, and so that has become my reality.
I’m truly sorry my friend. If we lived next door this would not be an issue. I would love to share your company every day. I have no idea why living 3,000 miles apart makes a difference. I want to go back to the time when we talked over the fence to one another, we played darts and drank beer. Those were some of the best days of my life. I love you, even though you would never guess that is the case.
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Behavioral scientists refer to metacognition as a means to look at your emotions and examine them from an informational standpoint. Sort of like looking in from the outside. The good news here is that is what you are doing when you are journaling. The emotions that we frequently see seeping out from our unconsciousness are set aside and only those emotions that are pulled from our consciousness become the subject of our journaling. In short, it allows us to look at our feelings from a cognitive viewpoint rather than from a subconscious emotional viewpoint. The more you journal, the better you get at not letting your uncontrolled emotions dictate your emotional state.
The benefit? We start to see the world around us more clearly.
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