There Is No Explanation

 An active duty Air Force guy self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C, on February 25th. He sent out a bunch of statements on social media about his forthcoming suicide, then live-streamed it. According to the New York Times:

“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” a man says in the video, echoing language that opponents of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza have used to describe the war. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.”  

Standing in front of the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, he sets his phone down to douse himself in a clear liquid from a metal bottle. He then lights himself on fire while yelling, “Free Palestine!” until he falls to the ground.

I cannot fathom why anyone one in their right mind would think this kind of martyrdom is useful. His death is basically meaningless in that he dies; he can no longer fight for his cause. America is fickle on a good day, callously uninterested on most days, so after the initial news report, no one cares. 

The guy self-identifies on the video as Aaron Bushnell, 25, of San Antonio. Was he Muslim? Did he have family or other close ties to Gaza? If he's military, how does he not know martyrdom by suicide is basically pointless here? I'm not suggesting that he was not passionate about what was happening in Gaza. Clearly he was, but he was an American! How could he not know this is the home of the free to be apathetic? Did he think committing suicide while live streaming would actually change minds? 

Lots of us remember the days of self-immolating Buddhist monks during the Vietnam War era. And I remember asking my Dad about it. I'd seen photographs of burning monks and honestly? They terrified me. My dad explained that these people believed that sacrificing their lives in that way would help to bring about the end of the war. I asked how that would happen, hoping to find something I could latch onto. His answer, however, was less than satisfying. He said, "I don't know."

The horror experienced while watching his live stream (which has now been scrubbed from the internet) only lasts a few minutes. You can't unsee it. But we also know you can't unsee people being hunted in their houses and the streets by terrorists who live stream that. The difference is one is voluntary; the other is murder in cold blood. I get that it's a protest. I just can't see why anyone would think it would be useful.

But then again, useful isn't always very dramatic and clearly he was going for drama. Y'know, that's a shortcut. We know what he said in his posts, but do we really know what he was thinking? I don't have to agree with his opinions or his passion to say if you wanna make a difference, you have to work at it. In Mr. Bushnell's case, it's Poof! He's gone.  Any good he might have done is over. 

Talking to a friend in Israel this morning, I asked about Rafah. Her answer was, frankly, not surprising. "I'm losing my humanity over this." I don't blame her one bit; I know I'm losing mine. Hostages are yet to be released, UNRWA weapons caches are still being uncovered, and Hamas moves its population around their shrinking chessboard as human shields. Does it only stop when everyone is dead except the guys in Qatar?

I keep asking myself, what happens when it is over? Does Hamas rearm and go for round 2? Well, if Hamas is still controlling Gaza, you better believe they will rearm and attack again. 

But where does this leave the Palestinian people? Still starving in squalor because their government will continue to spend all capital on tunnels and arms, never giving their people a thought about an economy to actually have a self-reliant state? Who is responsible for their well-being?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."                                                                  

Rita Mae Brown in Sudden Death (1983)

For over 70 years, the Arab nations have been attacking Israel. Usually with armies, but not this time. The latest attempt to rid Israel of its indigenous inhabitants began on October 7th with an act of terror, not a declaration of war. There was no army involved...only marauders on motorcycles, in trucks, and cars murdering civilians in their homes, in their towns, and at a music festival. Attack, withdraw, repeat. Again and again and again. Insanity, no?

But now, the world says Israel isn't entitled to defend itself and its citizens, that the genocide attempted and failed on October 7th was really Israeli terrorism. That's like saying Ukrainians are terrorists. The difference between Israel and Ukraine is that Israel has been fighting to survive 70+ years. Give the Ukraine a little more time and before you know it, people will be protesting on behalf of the Russians. Wait for it, folks. It's coming. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The news from North Carolina is curiouser and curiouser. My favorite soon to be ex-congressclown, Jeff Jackson, posted a video about possible tampering with the primaries in his state. Take a moment to listen before you read the rest. 

Remember this name:

And Justice For All PAC. From WRAL News:

As North Carolina’s 2024 primary elections heat up, it appears that at least hundreds of thousands of dollars have begun pouring in to influence some key races on the Democratic side from an unlikely source: Secretive outside groups tied to top Republican leaders. 

The Democratic primary for attorney general pits U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson against Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry and Tim Dunn, a lawyer from Fayetteville.On Friday Jackson accused an outside group — which has been heavily promoting Deberry as the more progressive candidate in the race — of being a fake liberal group that’s actually backed by GOP interests, based on a report by Charlotte public radio station WFAE. 

“It is now on track to spend $1 million just to beat me in the primary,” Jackson said in a social media video Friday. “But here's the kicker: It's funded by the other party. So I'm now running in a primary where the top spender isn't me or my opponent, it's the other party.”  

Jackson, Deberry and Dunn are running to replace Democrat Josh Stein, who’s running for governor to replace term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper, a fellow Democrat. The winner in the Democratic attorney general primary will face Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop in the general election. Bishop is running unopposed. 

Deberry criticized Jackson for attributing the mailers backing her candidacy to a secret GOP operation, noting that there's not currently any indication of who paid for the effort. 

"As any candidate for attorney general should know, it's wildly irresponsible to make assumptions about the source of funding without proof," she said.

There’s no direct proof the group behind the pro-Deberry ads, the And Justice For All PAC, is backed by Republicans. In part that’s because almost nothing is publicly known about it. The group only formed this month and has yet to submit paperwork that could show who’s funding it, or other identifying information. The political action committee’s physical address leads to a mail center in Washington, D.C., and its phone number goes straight to voicemail. The group’s listed contact did not respond to a request for comment. 

But there are some clues about who is behind it.  

The small, niche bank in Virginia it uses was founded by a former Republican U.S. senator and media reports indicate it serves a clientele made up largely of Republican politicians and political groups. The PAC’s ad buyer is Political Communications Advertising, which public records show has worked almost exclusively for Republican clients in the past — mostly the National Republican Congressional Committee, a group run by U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican from North Carolina and a colleague of both Bishop and Jackson in Congress. 

While that PAC is seeking to bolster the more progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for attorney general, a separate dark money group with deep ties to GOP leadership at the state level is taking the opposite tactic.

And you thought Putin was trying to buy elections.

The problem with Jeff Jackson is that he keeps posting these videos about how government really works for transparency's sake. The GOP in NC damn well better be afraid of him if he wins the AG job.

Frankly, I think he should be running for president in 2028.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If an opportunity arises to do something a little different, you should take it. 

Like hosting an impromptu mah jongg game on a Monday 

instead of writing the blog. 

It was more fun than you can possibly imagine...even if I did lose all my quarters. 

 

To Make Or Break A Community?

Photo credit - D. Getsug

Today, our beloved Grand Avenue in Saint Paul was papered over with signs. Not the signs we are used to seeing these days, but pictures of Gaza children with the label MURDERED by Israel. The text on the flyers is very interesting and bears closer scrutiny:

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has committed the most atrocious crimes on the Palestinian population. Murders and brutalities that extend far beyond October 7th. 

As the world silently watches a systematic genocide, we will continue to raise our voices and our stories - of murder,

mutilation, targeted attacks of civilians, and the grim reality of a

ruthless and bloody apartheid 

Spread the truth. Change the narrative. Take a photo.

Palestinians have every right to their land.

Palestinians have every right to resist.

Spread the truth? Change the narrative? 

What narrative would you like? One that buries the history of the region? Instead, how about facing historically verified the truth and confronting your own historically inaccurate narrative?

Israel was created in 1948? They left off the BCE part. 

Apartheid? Genocide? 

How about ethnic cleansing? 

They'll never mention the removal of Jews from Arab lands in 1948. Nope. They conveniently forgot about that housecleaning part. 

Sure, let's forget that since 1948 CE, the Arab countries en masse have been attacking our own indigenous population that is a tiny fraction of the population of the Levant....and can't manage to win.  

A calendar that provides an emerging population with events to be celebrated as a unified community is the first step in creating a unified culture. The Hebrew calendar as set down in the Torah gives us our framework to be unified as a community. From shabbat to the biggies like Rosh HaShannah and the harvest trio, we observe momentous events together. This is true for any unified culture. Christians have Christmas and Easter, and a raft of smaller holy days. Islam has Ramadan, Hindus have a whole raft of holy days, the French have Bastille Day, the Welsh have St. David's Day, and the US has Thanksgiving and July 4th. Every country has a calendar. 

In his novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera wrote:

The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was... The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Isn't that exactly what that poster is doing? The creators deny the history of Israel, refuse to acknowledge that Judaism predates Islam by more than two thousand years, and take no responsibility for their part in keeping a government that uses their own people as human shields, denies humanitarian aid to the population, and openly robs their own population of a working economy that would bring stability...and quite probably statehood...to their own land. 

I would present a very different version of truth: the Eben family of Ba'eri, Israel:

Chen and his wife Rinat and their four children - Alon (16), Idan (14), Tomer (12) and Nir (8) - began to suffocate from the smoke, ran outside and hid in the bushes. They decided to lie in a pile to protect the children. Little Tomer and Nir laying down, with Alon and Ido on top of them and the parents on top of them.

They were found and shot - Chen, Rinat, Ido and Alon were killed on the spot, while Tomer and Nir were saved. They hid quietly under the bodies of their family members, and in a moment of silence they ran to the window of a neighbor’s apartment and knocked on it. The neighbor opened it and pulled them both in, thus saving their lives.

Comparisons, as Miss Pease, our civics teacher, used to say, are odious, and comparing the tragedy of October 7th to the tragedy of Gaza probably is certainly odious. The genesis of one is really not comparable to the genesis of the other. People asleep in their beds and dancing at a music festival were hunted down, shot, tortured, raped, murdered. 

The war came to Gaza with the hostages. Return the hostages, the war stops.

Still, one cannot dismiss the ponderous sadness and disconsolation of both. The children and civilians of Gaza did not ask to be human shields. They were unwitting participants in a battle they may have known little about. I'm certain had they known their leaders were living the high life safely in Qatar and some of the other states while their homes, school, and hospitals sat over miles of weaponized tunnels and armament command centers, they might have been concerned about their own safety. They expected UNRWA and other UN agencies to provide promised humanitarian aid, completely unaware that it was diverted to support Hamas operatives in a grand style. One can hardly blame them for swallowing and digesting all the propaganda fed to them and to their kids in school, blaming Israel and the West for their abhorrent conditions. Never mind that when they went to Israel for medical care, they were cared for just as any Israeli was cared for. But the poison was already in their veins, fed to them by Hamas. All those dead kids and civilians are a tragedy because they didn't have to die. Their leaders chose that fate for them. 

Keep in mind that when Hamas held that fateful election in 2006, they ran on a platform of cleaning up corruption and establishing an economy. The exit poll for that election is a fascinating study of expectation vs reality. No sooner than Hamas had wrested control, they threw out the rest of the existing government to establish an Islamic state.There have been no real elections since; hence, no opportunity for Gaza to replace them. And beginning a new campaign to replace Hamas is the same as volunteering for a death sentence. 

But the reality right now is Hamas controls Gaza and views its only objective to be the dismantling of Israel and the removal of Jews from their own homeland. On the other side of the fence, Israelis are working to get aid into Gaza. They are protesting the actions of their own government on behalf of the people of Gaza. They are NOT celebrating the deaths of Muslims caught in this horrendous war. And therein lies the biggest difference of all.

Only one group wants this war....and it ain't Jews. 

Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, 2 cops and a fireman/EMT were killed by a crazy barricaded in his house very early Sunday morning. The two cops were from the Burnsville Police Department, and the fireman/EMT guy was a member of the SWAT first responder team. The EMT guy was killed while tending to one of the fallen cops. You can read about it in the link above. Try not to vomit. 

The shooter had 7 kids in the house, 5 of them were his. In fact, he had been awarded 2/3 custody because he had a "stable, high paying" job. He had priors, as well as an injunction forbidding him to have guns. Like that mattered. According to his ex, the kids adored their dad yet he "invited" them to go with him when he killed himself. 

Burnsville isn't far from me. I have friends who live there. It's a suburb like any other, full of just regular people going about their business....while having unfettered access to guns. How is that even possible? I just don't know. This town is shattered. But like everywhere else, nothing will come if it. 

Yeah, we don't have a gun problem in this country. People kill people.

But here's the thing, We, the People are proving ourselves to be completely delusional when it comes to politics and politicians. No one is willing to stand up against the epidemic of people killing people. No one wants to confront a seditious old man who lies non-stop every time he's handed a mike. This is something so disturbing about this and I don't know which disgusts me more: the refusal of We, the People, to admit our lawmakers aren't doing their jobs, or that We, the People, keep re-electing them. 

You tell me.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

My Aunty Gladknit turns 95 this week

and to celebrate

she became a first time great-grandmother!

Mazel tov, Aunty G!

The woman is a total rock star!

Down the Rabbit Hole

This has been a busy week on a whole lotta levels. I learned about stuff I didn't know. Some of it good, some of it not so good, but nothing earth shattering. In between trying to learn how to operate the new car....and I do set a few minutes aside every morning to learn another function... but you still need an engineering degree ...and thinking about war (yeah, I know) I've also had to examine and re-examine some of my previously held-dear concepts. 

First, let's talk cars. I finally got the full accident report on the Rogue and holey buckets! there was one heck of a surprise in there. Big-ass-truck driver was drunk. Yep. Six o'clock on a Saturday evening and he blew a .15 on the ol' breathalyzer. Officially drunk in Minnesota is .08. I guess I didn't get close enough to him that night, but apparently he had serious booze-breath because he was "alcohol suspected" on the form. Now I know why he was so freaked out. I have been hit by a drunk before, so I'm not a fan of the drink'n'drive club since that last one almost took out my then 4-year old son. Thank G-d I was in the Volvo that day. 

I also learned about Pearl Harbor this week. I mean, long ago I learned the big chunks, but I never paid much attention to the numbers. It was, after all, WWII and lots of people died in that war. But I went down a research rabbit hole on this one. The official death toll at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 was 2,403 and that was military and civilian deaths. There had been no declaration of war prior to December 7th. In fact, the declaration of war from Japan came about two days after the attack. Ergo, we were not at war with Japan even though there were tensions over Japanese expansion into China and restrictions of trade between Japan and the US. Then I thought about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Between 110,000 and 210,000 died from the atom bombs dropped on those cities. They can't be sure of the number because so many people were incinerated. 

After reading about the lead up to Pearl Harbor and the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I came to the only conclusion there was: if you start a war, people will die. It's really just that simple. The bombing probably saved millions of lives: Japanese, Asian, and others. It might've been done with one, not two bombs, but in the end, it stopped the war...and that saved lives...especially in Japan. No, it wasn't humanitarian...it was efficient. In war efficiency used to count. And if it stopped the killing, so be it. 

War, however, is never really simple. There are two or more sides. Both sides will skew numbers to their benefit. Both sides think only stupid people cannot see the truth...their version of the truth, at least. And sometimes history set in stone is treated as propaganda, facts are dismissed as convenient fiction, and people on both sides still die. And people will lie forever about the causes. I mean, even Niki Haley didn't think the Civil War was about slavery yet a whole lotta people died for that one. But I digress. 

This brought me around to thinking about death. 

This month is Adar Alef. This year, there's also an Adar Bet. See, the Hebrew calendar doesn't have a leap day, it has a leap month. Okay, try wrapping your head around this: 

A leap year in the Jewish calendar has 13 months and occurs 7 times in a 19-year cycle. In Hebrew, a leap year is referred to as Shanah Me'uberet, or pregnant year.

L to R: Budge, Dave, Mom 

And I have no idea how this works mathematically, nor do I wanna know. What I do know is that Adar, whether it's Alef or just plain Adar, begins the spring yahrzeit parade for me....Grandma Sarah first, then my mom, then my Uncle Dave, then my MIL, then Grandpa Moishe, then Uncle Budge, and finally, Ziggy. There are more yahrzeits than you can shake a stick at...or put a rock on a grave. Whatever. It's a tough time for me and my thoughts do turn to my own demise. Did I do a good enough job for the kids? Did I do right by the old folks? Am I leaving anything undone? What would Mom have done? What can I still fix? 

Ah, there she is: the fixer. I want to kiss all the booboos and make them go away. I want to smooth all the paths. I want everyone to love each other and play nice. The truth is, I cannot do that. No one can. But somehow I manage to periodically beat myself up for things I coulda, woulda, shoulda. When I stand at the edge of that particular rabbit hole, I now know enough to force myself back from the edge. A couple of weeks ago, I caught myself wanting to fix something that the conscious me knows can never be fixed because, frankly, it's not a me problem; I simply adopted it because it needed to be fixed and I truly believed in kisses and band-aids. 

Which brings me back to, believe it or not, war. Honestly, it must be the flawed end of human nature that makes us fight to the death. Since the very beginning, history has been nothing but a long line of hateful actions that end in war. And we all know if you start a war, people will die. Even the familial/interpersonal wars...those are death by a thousand slights...but pieces of one's heart die when the wars cannot be stopped.

That teeny tiny white speck is Israel

My heart is dying in pieces for my people, the Jewish people. We make up less than .2% of the world's population. Our traditional homeland, the place where we have continuously lived for over 4,000 years, is about 8,550 square miles, about the size of New Jersey. The Arab nations of North Africa and the Middle East are about 5,000,000 square miles. That means Israel takes up about .17% of the land. A veritable speck. Why do they want to throw us off so tiny a parcel? Is there something we could've done to prevent this...I mean short of marching into the sea? Can this be fixed and still have our home intact? I think every one of us asks that question every day.

Yet, every war that has been started against the modern State of Israel has been lost. Even when statehood was offered, it was refused because Hamas and its predecessors wanted all the land to be Judenrein...Jew free. Why do they hate us? Because. Abraham sent Ishmael away? Because we learned to be portable in exile? Because we have succeeded wherever we have gone without being permitted to own any land?

Or is it because we are a stiff-necked people who refuse to bow down to other versions of God because we have retained our identity as Jews? 

Folks, if you are so threatened by this tiny sliver of population on this tiny sliver of land, you have other problems that need fixing and shitting on us isn't gonna fix your issues. Stop wasting your time trying to kill us; we don't die. We reinvent and we survive. Jews playing the victim went out at the end of World War II. We no longer have any interest in placating your issues while dying in the process. Deal with yourself and your own shortcomings. Build yourselves an economy. We did it, and the civilized world wants to help you do it. Build industries, not tunnels. There. Isn't that easy?

In the end, all any of us want as Jews is to be left alone to be Jews in the place we've called home for 4,000 years. You want to share that space? Fabulous...do it respectfully and democratically. Work hard, play hard, send your kids to school, drink potable water and use the electricity. Serve in the government...you get a voice, you know. But understand this: Israel is Israel is Israel is Israel is Israel. It is our home and we're not leaving. 

Can you possibly grok that concept?  

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Still pushing to free Palestine?

Great idea! Free them from Hamas

because that's who's holding them back. 

The Long Game

I am not yet in a place where I can write about the news, political, domestic, or international without my head in explode mode. Which, loosely translated, means I have little to say about anything tonight that won't come out like a whiny screed. And that's the last thing I wanna do. So instead, I'm gonna make a few observations, toss 'em into the ring, and see if I ultimately hit the mark farther down the road.

 

Nikki Haley is one smart cookie and I hope she doesn't drop out of the race. Yeah, I know you're all thinking she's a waste of time and money, but I don't think so. I think she's playing the long game on this one and she's betting on Feckless getting convicted in at least one trial and getting jail time along with it. As a felon, he may not be able to vote in Florida, but apparently there is no prohibition against his serving from a cell if elected. 

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states: 

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

So it's possible. Haley, I suspect, will go after him on sedition if he's convicted and will align herself as an MOR GOP kinda candidate. Not that it would get her elected. IF We, the People see fit to elect a convicted seditionist, the fight is functionally over.  As is the Constitution. 

For the moment, Nikki Haley appears to be the only sane person in the room, and that's not sayin' much.

At the same time, do I think Taylor Swift is a Pentagon asset? That her romance with Travis Kelce is a sinister plot to influence the election? What is so scary about two people in the early days of a relationship? I mean, really folks. Why can't two high profile people date without absurd speculation? Why is she so scary? Because they are an attractive couple? What magical powers radiate from her friendship bracelets? 

All these fear-mongers do is telegraph their own lack of penis size. What? Her vagina is gonna bite them? They wish. Even failed GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy posted something that sounds like it's out of a bad novel:

And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple [wink wink] this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.

Ja, sure, you betcha! What is this guy smoking....that makes him think anyone believes this shit?

Oh, wait. We already know they believe Feckless is some kind of messiah figure. 

But maybe Taylor should be?

Look, I am no Swiftie, or a Taylor Swift devotee, or even like her music very much. I don't have a single Taylor Swift song on any playlist. Ed Sheeren? Yup. Imagine Dragons? Fer sure. Stevie Nicks? Absolutely. But that does not keep me from being in total awe of this woman who took on Scooter Braun and the music cabal. I've listened to a boatload of interviews and chat show appearances trying to figure out what makes her so appealing and why I think all girls should grow up emulating her fierce determination to be captain of her own ship. Take the time to listen to her acceptance speech for Billboard's Woman of the Decade speech in 2020. She's really something: smart, erudite, blunt, direct, prescient,  and brooks no shit. 

         

She lays it all on the line and she is spot on. Swift says stuff ALL women artists, whether we're musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, or writers have and are experiencing. For this speech alone, she should be on a stamp. I know it's long, but if you're not a female artist, or living with a female artist, or the parent of a female artist, you might not fully realize the gender inequity we all face now and will continue to face in a future that will probably be dominated by AI. 

Here's the real conspiracy theory: if these pencil dicks manage to win or usurp this election, count on the suspension of the Constitution of These Here United States. Count on the immediate implementation of martial law to "keep the peace."

And kiss democracy, however imperfect, goodbye.

I've said it a billion times: you elect the government you deserve. 

Yeah, I know I'm being whiny et al, but folks, it's just too hard to keep quiet.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

I wish we had a candidate as compelling as Ms. Swift.

I am not suggesting she run for POTUS, 

only that we should find someone 

cut from similar cloth. 

Preferably a woman.

Lord knows men have been screwing this country long enough.

Presto! Change-o #2! It's a Hybrid RAV 4

Not MN 62, 
but you get the idea

Several weeks ago, I was minding my own business as I drove over to the kiddos to kiddo-sit while the Mr. and Mrs. Junior Son went out for the evening. Now, if you know the Twin Cities, you might happen to know that on MN 62, (aka the Crosstown) as you crest the hill by Cedar Avenue, the traffic almost always stops for no apparent reason. Since it was after dark, that long line of red, not moving tail lights was a dead giveaway and frankly, there was ample opportunity to stop on perfectly dry pavement. Assuming, of course, you're paying attention. I was. The car ahead of me wasn't paying quite as much attention and swerved onto the shoulder. I stopped, but left him room to straighten himself out. The BMW behind me was also paying attention, and he was slowing to a stop with ample room behind me. The jackass behind him, however, in the big-ass pick-up truck was not paying attention and slammed into BMW-guy who, in turn, was far enough away from me to just tap my rear bumper. 

I pulled off the road and went to see if I sustained any real damage that would keep me from getting to the kids. BMW-guy got outta his car and came running toward me yelling, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" I was fine until I realized BMW-guy running toward me was in one very elegant overcoat and a suit. OMG! A groom hit me! was all I could think because this guy was tailored and no one dresses like that in Minnesota except guys going to their own weddings. He was absolutely adorable and I, not being a cougar type, only wanted to feed him matzah ball chicken soup to make sure he was okay.

"I've never been in an accident!" he cried, panic in his eyes. "What do I do?" 

"Not to worry," I reassured him. "I'll call the cops. We hafta do that." We walked over to big-ass truck guy who was freaking out. For good reason. There were truck parts strewn all over the Crosstown. He clearly wasn't paying attention. We got him calmed down, took out licenses and insurance cards to the BMW and thank goodness for cell-phones, we all photographed our stuff. I called 911, got a variety of instructions, and told the guys to return to their cars, get in, and put their seatbelts on. I called the Junior Son and he was able to find me on the highway traffic cam. 

Once State Trooper Ostertag appeared on the scene like a Viking materializing out of the mists, I was given the okay to leave with a promise that I'd have the accident report later that night. 

Turns out, I didn't get love-tapped by any ol' guy in a suit. I got tapped by a major sports star whose name I had just heard on the news before I left the house because he had scored the winning goal in a shoot-out. I could not believe I did not recognize the name when I saw it on his license, much less his face....which I have shaded out here, along with his number. Let's just say he was darling. He was clearly shaken after seeing the mess of Silverado all over the road and the back end of his BMW. And he was still worried about the little old lady in the little old silver Rogue. 

As it turned out, the Rogue actually needed some repair. Not much, but the rear bumper was cracked. The guys who took over at the body shop (Superior if you're in Eagan...highly recommend) were terrific. As I was picking up the car, Eric, my restoration advocate, pointed out some emerging issues and gently suggested it might be time to begin thinking about a new car. 

Looks okay for 12 yrs old, eh?
See Presto! Change-o! It's a Rogue

Actually, I had already started the process. I really loved my Rogue and thought about just getting another one. The kids wanted me to get a Subaru, but I really wanted a hybrid. It was time to cut my footprint, so I began doing homework back in the summer. I drove the kids' Subarus with some regularity, but they weren't as nimble as I'm used to. There is a hybrid something coming in the 2025 model year according to reports, but getting information about it was almost impossible despite calls to two dealers. Rogue is no longer offering a hybrid so as much as I loved my car, it wasn't gonna happen. 

I had three big requirements for a new car: heated, leather super-adjustable seats, a sun/moonroof, and mud flaps. These may sound random to you, but every time I "built" a car online, those were three things I looked for in the accessories packages. I shopped the car types, went over every possible contender, did my homework and narrowed the field down to 2 hybrids: the RAV 4 and the Honda CR-V. 

My first test drive, the Honda CR-V, was surprisingly good. It handled well and was very responsive on the freeway, but I wasn't crazy about the control screen and the driver's seat. I sit up straight. as high as possible, and pretty far back; I couldn't find a comfortable spot.  The sales guy, however, was very nice, unlike the one from 12 years ago when I went to look at cars at that same dealership. 

My other stop was Luther Toyota all the way across town, owned by the same group as my Nissan dealership... as good a reason as any to make the trip. Twelve years of using a Luther shop for routine maintenance was enough of a recommendation. Again, it's the lone woman thing and I wanted a place where the management stood behind their cars and treated all customers as equals, something I rather liked about walking into the Nissan dealership.  Plus, I was going to see Scott Smith who I've known for years. We have talked about the RAV4 for years. I wanted to hear what he had to say, then drive a car with him. Even if I hadn't known Scott, he made the process easy and I would work with him again in a heartbeat. 

It didn't hurt that a RAV4 in the configuration I wanted (but not the color) happened to have just arrived and wasn't sold. Until that minute. But I will tell you what actually sold me on the car: the driver's seat.  

I love it. I'm still finessing the final position but one of the cool features is that I can set the positions, and if someone else drives, I can get my seat adjusted back to where I want it with a push of a single button. This is seriously handy when other people like to recline the seat so far back so that when I get in, I fall over like a turtle. For some odd reason, they view this as a spectator event and think it's very funny. 

There are so many bells and whistles on this thing that I make it a point every morning after minyan to take a moment to learn something new. You need a master's degree in engineering to figure out some of this stuff. I will eventually psych it all out and I'll find my radio stations. Yeah, I still listen to the radio.

Side note: Apple-head that I am, I've never talked much to Siri before, but she's kinda part of the deal. We have come to an understanding. When I say, "Hey, Siri?" she just answers, "Hmmm?" 

I can live with that.  

So I said Shehecheyanu, the prayer for firsts, the first time I sat in the car and prepared to drive. Then I stopped off at the Junior house just as Little Miss was getting off the school bus, so we said Shehecheyanu together. Then I leaned over and whispered, with any luck, this is your first car. The look on her face was priceless. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Only you can figure out when it's time to let go of shit,

when to let it slide off your plate.

Stop thinking there might have been something 

you could've done to fix it. 

To kiss it and make it all better. 

Chances are nothing would've helped 

and it wasn't your job in the first place. 

Be Careful What You Wish For

Dean Phillips

By the time most of you read this, the New Hampshire primary will be underway. It's really not much of a primary; everybody but Niki Haley has bowed out of the GOP side, Biden is the incumbent Democrat, and Congressman Dean Phillips, (MN-D, 3rd District) is running a campaign to give Democrats an alternative to Biden.

Phillips is an interesting guy. His dad, Artie Pfefer, was killed in Vietnam when he was 6 months old. His mother, DeeDee, married Eddie Phillips (whose mother happened to be Dear Abby) when Dean was about three. Eddie adopted him, hence his surname is Phillips. But that's neither here nor there. What makes him interesting is that he's a three-term Congressclown, having beaten the incumbent GOP clown with 55% of the vote in 2018. No Dem had held that seat since 1961, so that should tell you something about him. 

Like Feckless Loser, he inherited his first conglomerate, Phillips Distilling, but he didn't drive that into the ground. Not at all. As per Wikipedia,

Phillips served as the company's president and CEO from 2000 to 2012. He then stepped aside to run one of his other corporate investments, Talenti gelato, until it was sold for an undisclosed amount to Unilever in 2014. In 2016 he founded Penny's Coffee, a coffee shop chain he still owns, which has two locations in the Twin Cities metropolitan area as of 2022.

[Confession: The best Talenti flavors are Sea Salt Caramel and Pacific Coast Pistachio. And they're all OU. Just sayin.']

The guy knows how to run a business. He has a proven track record. Plus, he's 55 years old. He appears to be in good health. Is he perfect? No. Is he squeaky clean? Probably not. Am I supporting him? Not at this time. Have I thought about it? Yes. 

I don't think he's undermining Biden; I think he's asking some seriously legitimate questions that need to be asked. There is no small number of voters on both sides looking for an alternative candidate. A third party candidate might be a disaster. But the right candidate might bring a wide enough swath into the voting booth to stop the fall. Can one be found? I have no idea, but it's nice someone is trying. 

As long as the American public continues to drink the Kool-Aid that Biden is lousy for the economy, there may not be a viable path to salvage his campaign. So far, the only one talking loud is Feckless, and his minions don't care what he says. 

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict Feckless is gonna get another shot at the presidency. This worries me on two very different planes.

The first is that of late, he makes speeches that make no sense....the WORDS don't make sense. Two nights ago, in one of his speeches about January 6th, he consistently confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley, claiming she was the one in charge of security during the January 6th insurrection:

Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people."

Twins!

Haley was never in Congress; she was, however, his representative to the United Nations. 

The gaffs are too numerous to list,  but if someone doesn't begin to call this orange's mental acuity and fitness into question, then no one is doing their job. That his followers don't seem to mind that he cannot put together a cogent sentence is terrifying. Are they willing to elect a guy with obvious cognitive decline to carry the nuclear codes in his back pocket?

Add to that this dictator on day one business. The New York Times printed parts of the December 5th, 2023 FOX Town Hall with Sean Hannity:

But Mr. Hannity, a longtime Trump ally, was apparently unsatisfied, and five minutes later, he brought up the issue again. “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse this power as retribution against anybody?” he said.

 

“Except for Day 1,” Mr. Trump said breezily. There was the smallest silence. “Except for—” Mr. Hannity responded, sounding a bit flustered.

 

“Look,” Mr. Trump joked to the crowd watching him in Davenport, Iowa. “He’s going crazy.”

 

And even as Mr. Hannity tried to clarify that Mr. Trump had no intention of abusing his office, Mr. Trump did not state a clear aversion to the idea of authoritarian power.

 

“This guy, he says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’” Mr. Trump said, referring to Mr. Hannity. “I said, ‘No, no, no — other than Day 1.’ We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

As we say in  Minnesota, Ja, sure, you betcha you're gonna stop. 

During the immunity hearing, the following exchange took place between Judge Florence Pan and Feckless Loser's attorney, D. John Sauer:

Judge Pan: I asked you a yes-or-no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?  

Attorney Sauer: Qualified yes – if he is impeached and convicted first.

With SCOTUS firmly in his pocket, his belief that he can order a hit on an opposition leader, do you really think the Constitution as we know it will hold up against his promised power grab? I don't. 

I think the Constitution will be repealed and dismantled in parts, supported by a court that doesn't give a flying fart in space for anything but their own pockets. And those members of the court who dissent? They will be impeached, disbarred, and disinappeared*. 

Ready for part two? Ever ask yourself What happens if he runs and loses?

The idea that he could run and win is not nearly as terrifying as what happens if he loses again.

This time, it won't be a failed insurrection at the Capitol building. This time, his anti-democracy minions have had more than enough time to not just learn from the January 6th failure, but how to start a civil war.  These guys have not stood still. Behind closed doors, deep in the forests, and tucked away in the hills, those guys Feckless Loser told to stand down have done exactly that. They stood down, stepped back, and are planning the demise of the United States as we know it. Feckless, of course, will think he's the dictator, but we all know that's poppycock. He will be the puppet whose strings are jerked by the new versions of Bannon and Miller. 

There is no clear dividing line as there was in the first Civil War. A division will not be cleanly cut. A friend in the military pointed out that most of the brass would uphold their oath to defend the constitution and fight to save a democratic republic such as it is. The troops, on the other hand, may not understand the nuance. That is dangerous on a whole bunch of other levels. 

What happens in the US matters across the globe. If we fall, other democracies will fall without our support...places like Ukraine and Israel. 

And if Israel falls?

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Think long and hard about your political choices. 

*Disinappeared: an original word by the Senior Son.