Friday, April 07, 2017

Not the one I want, but the one I have

Thursday night, President Donald Trump retaliated against Syrian atrocities with an airstrike aimed at their bases.

Hours earlier, it's what Hillary Clinton said she would do, had she won the election. Years ago, it's what then Secretary of State John Kerry wanted to do, and he has always tried to avert conflict. So I'm left to believe it was the correct decision.

My news feed is filled with opinions otherwise, most of them feverish with conspiracy and dark motives. Normally I find such rantings rather easy to dismiss, and I dismiss them this time, too. But here's the thing ...

This time, I get it.

No, I never believed Hillary Clinton had Parkinson's. Yes, I believe Sandy Hook happened. Sorry, but Elvis really is dead. I believe almost all popular conspiracy theories are crap.

But I wish I could reject this one on faith, rather than commonsense and life experience.

I wish I could say I believe my President.

But he's the Birther in Chief who promised to produce "the truth" about Barack Obama's birth certificate. He's the inaugurated paranoid who insists Obama had him wiretapped. He's the Islamophobe who swears he saw tape of thousands of Muslims cheering when The Towers fell on 9/11. He's the cynic who knows his base is dumb enough to embrace an Enquirer story about Ted Cruz' father and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Isn't this why, when we were kids, our moms used to emphasize that they would forgive us our naughtiness as long as we didn't lie about it?

A Hole In Juan

The Friday 56

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)
*Post it.

From A Hole in Juan, page 56. English teacher Amanda Pepper, worried about the rumor that her senior class somehow got an advance copy of their exams. Could it be true? Or is it just another of the Halloween pranks that go on at high school every year at this time ...

Those tests had been locked in my drawer since Friday. I went back to my desk and tried the center drawer. Still locked.