Posts Tagged ‘democracy’
Especially Exhausting
I suspect people around the world have already received news of the Trump-inspired mob storming our nation’s capital yesterday. It brought me to tears. It felt like a disaster to our democracy that can’t be undone, even though it accomplished nothing in terms of the mob’s assumed goal of disallowing a peaceful transfer of power to happen.
What can’t be undone is the obliteration of our ability to profess our style of government is above the violent disruptions common in many other parts of the world. The 45th President has successfully trashed everything about our reputation as a world-leading country.
Luckily, the brief insurrection was pushed back, out of the capital and off the grounds by the time darkness fell. Unfortunately, I doubt we will recover any respectability for decades, if ever.
By the time I was ready to turn in for the night, there seemed to be a few glimmers of hope that some of the Republicans who have been enabling the dumpster-fire of a President for years were finally making timid statements that hint of a realization of the error of their ways.
In a year of unprecedenteds, I found myself actually listening for the first time in my life to a few speeches from the floor of the house and senate chambers after they reconvened. They actually sounded sane to me! They also sounded like there was a growing momentum to drop the fomenting of election fraud claims. Ya think!?
The whole afternoon was especially exhausting. The day of certifying the electoral votes historically was only noticed by a small number of geeks who live for all things political and the press whose job it is to cover it. Yesterday, it grabbed the attention of the nation and beyond.
Why? For only one reason. The delusions of a lunatic. He is the main reason, but also fully culpable are the political fools who enabled him and the hoards of citizens who choose to believe the lies professed by him.
I guess it should be no surprise that it’s all so bleeping exhausting.
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Never Imagined
I never imagined that in my lifetime the United States would become a laughingstock of the world. It’s rather embarrassing to witness our once-powerful democracy devolve into such a mockery of itself. We are probably the last ones to finally see the hypocrisies being laid bare with the blatant disrespect for last November’s election. The rest of the world has seen through our holier-than-thou attitude for a long time.
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Try as I might to preserve the sanctity of my mental space, I failed miserably last night at preventing the invasion of the outrageous gobbledygook related to an hour-long phone call of bullying malfeasance that was recorded for all the world to hear. Sad. So sad.
I sure wish there were swift consequences for such blatant abuse of power.
Thank goodness I have Cyndie and our chickens to brighten things up for me. In a perfectly timed intervention that adjusted my attitude splendidly, Cyndie shared this tidbit:
She decided to offer our chickens the aging remains of an unfinished apple pie from Christmas. She set the foil pie pan in the coop on Sunday night when she closed the coop. Yesterday morning, when she opened things up for the day, Cyndie said there wasn’t a single trace of apple, crust, or the oatmeal crumble topping anywhere in sight. Just a perfectly clean pie pan.
I guess it’s safe to say our chickens like apple pie.
They do not automatically eat everything we set out for them. Some kitchen scraps get entirely ignored. We get a little extra entertainment value out of the times we appear to have offered something that catches their fancy.
That little story lightened my outlook nicely. Like a sunny winter day after an overnight fog.
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Always Hope
It is a time of speeches for democracy in the US this week and hearing the intelligent oration of our previous (44th) President last night was incredibly refreshing. After enduring years of the undoing of countless protections to our environment, the destruction of our country’s reputation across the globe, disrespecting our allies and coddling our adversaries, and repeatedly trashing our precious freedom of the press, the campaign for an alternative is finally stirring hope for a better future.
I sure hope our youngest eligible voters will show up like never before to exercise their right to have a say in who our lawmakers and policymakers and leaders will be for the next term, all the way down the ballot.
If our chickens could vote, I think the twelve young ones would choose to have the net removed so they could take over the whole coop.
The three adult hens might not be ready to accept the kids yet, though. Tuesday night, I think they thought the kids had locked them out of the house. When I arrived to close the chicken door for the night, to my surprise, the hens came running to meet me.
“What are you guys doing up still?!” I asked in amazement. “You’re supposed to be in bed already!”
Then I noticed their access door was already closed. Poor things couldn’t get in.
It was as if they were running toward me to tell me all about their dilemma.
When Cyndie got home later in the evening, I asked if she knew any reason why the door might have been closed. The realization flashed and she moaned in woe. She had closed it earlier in the day, in case any of the young ones hopped over a barrier while she was pulling out the poop board to clean it, and forgot to slide the door back open.
The young chicks have quickly gained full confidence for climbing to the big roosts and will make big leaps and flap wings to reach places we’d rather they didn’t, like the slanted surface above the nest boxes.
But their confidence and aggressiveness give me hope they will be up to every challenge that lies ahead while maturing into adulthood.
It feels good to experience a little boost in hope. For our chicks, yes, but more importantly, for our country.
It’s been a really long stretch of little to none in the hope department.
This serves to remind me to always hope, regardless of how gloomy the prospects might ever appear.
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