Logos

For the last several months, I have been avoiding posting anything political.  I have not written anything even remotely related to my thoughts and reactions, especially my feelings, about our leaders in Washington, the President in particular.  It is not because I am shy or do not want to offend anybody or lose friends, but because I cannot come up with anything fast enough.  Whenever I get worked up and begin to write about what just happened or the latest tweet, something new pops up on the news. Before I even crank out a first draft my would-be story is old news.  I am weary, bone tired and just wish it all would go away.   The violence and protests in Charlottesville and our president’s response were so egregious that I could not stand to hear him speak one more time, so I turned off the news, choosing to watch benign movies and binge on Netflix series rather than get upset over something that I felt powerless to do anything about.

In the beginning, starting during the campaign last year, I wrote snarky commentaries about Trump and his minions and felt like I’d accomplished something.  Now it is too crazy, too serious, too scary to even begin to make light of anything that is going on. Not only are we faced with a possible nuclear exchange with North Korea, but we as a country are faced with the monumental task of helping the millions of people who have been displaced and are suffering as a result of hurricanes Harvey and Irma. This is nothing to joke about. Nothing anyone can make light of.  And for me it is personal. We have two daughters living in the Houston area.  They are ok, not homeless, but they know many who have been devastated by flooding, and are struggling to recover.

Of course the latest news out of Washington is Trump’s cowardly rescinding of DACA to take place in six months. So I have called and emailed our representatives in Washington demanding that they get a law passed that will give all these young persons security and a path to citizenship, and to do it NOW. To do anything less is unthinkable.

In spite of all the crazy, I always have hope for the future of this country. Since the President has started dialogue with the top Democratic lawmakers in Washington – Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer – maybe, just maybe both parties will begin to work together for the good of this nation, making changes and fixing the problems with the ACA, passing compassionate Immigration reform and making DACA into the law of the land. Maybe they will stop the infighting and most expediently pass a budget that will not hurt the most vulnerable in this country and continue to fund FEMA to cover not just the current disasters but to keep it viable into the future for the next big disaster that will befall this nation. And there will be more, many more.  The rising sea level and the rising temperature of the oceans are most assuredly going to continue to cause hurricanes that are much stronger and larger than previous storms. The storm surge of Sandy, and the ferocity of Harvey and Irma are not “Acts of God” as some may claim, but calamities caused by our own hubris, thinking we are gods and can do whatever we like to this earth without paying the consequences.

But I suppose if the Second Coming is right around the corner, it doesn’t matter what we do to this earth, since it is all going to be destroyed very soon, maybe even in our lifetime.