Thang Nguyen 555

President Ford.

Pardoned Nixon, brought an end to Vietnam (got us scrambling elbow-to-elbow for a space on a Saigon blood-stained barge). Since when does number 3, unelected by popular votes, preside over the fate of a nation and the world.

On this Presidents’ Day weekend, we celebrate their memories.

Chevy Chase used to play President Ford on SNL But the true Ford, emptying out his pocket change for the WH photographer, whom he trusted and who had no time for an ATM ( he had to catch a courier flight to cover Vietnam’s last day), won me over.

Yes, he was a bit clumsy (so was my Dad, both of them taller than the door’s beam) when holding one of the surviving orphans – the flight that did not crash out of TSN Airport (before it was deemed and declared in-operable, hence kick-starting Operation Frequent Wind).

From the football field to the political field, President Ford handled himself above-board, by the rules. Unlike the President’s men, most of them had been jailed by the time he took over (his unorthodox pardoning a month after taking office might have triggered anger resulted in two assassinated attempts by female shooters in CA.

In his last interview with Bob Woodward he mentioned he had to pardon Nixon for the good of the country (which could no longer endure a prolong Watergate trial). Mr. Woodward admitted that we thought we pursued the truth only to find out, the truth lies on the other side (of a dead-end trail).

The multi-facet truth is often times better understood in looking back than forward.

Still good judgment only comes after evaluating, judging and remembering those facts.

(That’s why reporters took a notebook with them). At the outset of dementia, we prefer the haunted over the happy times. After that arduous journey, I remember duffle-bag full of paper currency tossed to the four winds. Memory of a fallen nation. Memory of a father who did not want to join his family (much less keeping it all together as leadership requires).

President Ford kept his nation together (while parting with his cash). In times of need, who do you call ( late 70’s, call the Ghostbusters).

On campus we grew our hair, our cynicism and skepticism (journalism school enrollment went way up) hallmarks of a post-Watergate, post-Vietnam, post-Woodstock era.

We chew on the pain of being betrayed. They (president Thieu and Nixon) had the luxury to fly their furniture and erased tapes ahead of departure, while we, the uninvited foreign labor, fought tooth-and-nail for an unseat (how we wished we had been orphans on the non-crash flight out a few days before).

And so it goes. On this long weekend, we commemorate and commiserate past Presidents, their accomplishments and short-fallings. Presidents are first human, but more on the side of ambition and abuse. Once in a very rare while, number 3 got bumped up and bumping his head against the beam of the Oval Office.

Come to think of it, it’s refreshing to witness better exercises of power like “I have to pardon Nixon”…

Presidential Pardoning Power, well executed, just as the Oath of Office says..

With all that has been going on, that’s what we need: un-clogging.

It’s Friday. Folks are into “Happy Friday”, “Happy Hour” etc…

But it’s not at this time. The funny thing about Ukraine is that US is more worried e.g. will inflation get worse, how about BA2.0 (new Omicron variant) and Wall Street is rattled.

That’s all. Or else, it’s just a normal long weekend, commemorating past Presidents.

We’re all going to join them; deadth by assassination or from resignation.

My first American presidents were Gerald Ford (owed him a debt of gratitude), then Carter etc..after that, they all seemed to be younger e.g. G.W. Bush, Obama….then bang! Biden, on world stage with Putin and Jinping.

At least, Biden doesn’t receive any love letters (tucked away somewhere among the 150 boxes in Palm Beach ) from N Korea Dr Evil.

Don’t mean to be funny or anything. Just the way things are. Big guns and bigger guns. Taking the world hostages… for 6 million dollars ransom. or 6 billion (having been away in a deep freeze).

We all spend our allowance on G.I. Joe’s and toy guns. Except now they are real. And they kill.

After all, too many people live way past their prime (thanks to all those vaccines) and productive years.

Gotta have a way to get rid of them e.g. climate change, war and famine.

Back in cave-days, we at least co-operated (against bigger Dinosaurs). The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Not now. Since we have
extra life for and extra means to connect, but it doesn’t translate into better cooperation.

Everyone is out to make money via social media on us.

We are all “employed” to do ghost work (non-compensated). And we are so naive and gullible to keep doing it ( how do we convert Likes into tangibles like bit coins!).

All the while, complaining why inflation is eating up at our slice of pizza. And how much the likelihood of war and eruption in Ukraine will affect us. Of course, it will and has dragged stocks down. Back during WWII, it’s the Japanese American on the West coast that got locked up due to war eruption abroad. So what happens somewhere else affects the here/now directly.

Just wake up (when the booze weans and wears off after Happy Hour). See for yourself.

We “can’t handle the truth”.

All those ideal and abstract notions like truth, justice, peace and love. They are and remain so: abstract and ideal notions, to be strived for, but never obtained. Nice try.

Now pat ourselves on the back. Happy Friday. It is what it is.

Life. The only real thing, not Coke. Everything else? illusions to be un-clogged.

Our upbringing, at least mine, were geared toward survival; on foods, clothing and shelter; Maslow the whole scale through (with security, self-esteem, love and self-actualize after that). Growing up in war times, we did not need Maslow to tell us what’s next. But in our household, we were taught to look out not just for ourselves and above all, self-respect.

Thanks to current computational capacity, sociology and biology drill it further while digital media wider with their 24/7 news cycle. Triggered by tweets and baited by posts, our attention span is stretched to the max and often times, no match for machine, network effect and algorithm-automated ads that keep Big Tech server-farms humming (Cha Ching!)

Drown in data deluge, the audience – like a deer facing oncoming headlights, freezed up, then by reflex, followed alpha males (to the cliff) or “snake-oil salesmen” (per Mike Pence’s Chief of Staff) for tips on what drugs to take, what horses to bet and even what horse drugs to inject. When pressed as to why, was it shameful, they pulled a “Spotify” e.g. technicalities and procedures.

Back in the 60’s, it’s more of an ANTI message: anti-establishment and not becoming sterile with spic-and-span status quo.

In short, we wanted no conformity, no Revolutionary Road, no Organizational Man. On de-coming (as opposed to On becoming). We explored Nature (Walden II), we preferred less stiffness and more spontaneity; a sense of belonging, of brotherhood (Come on People now, smile on your brother …).

Back to the land, to tilt and to chill (you’ve got to let the morning last). Not to be pressured into being/becoming someone we are not, as in the Graduates? and certainly not the Jesus freaks, the computer nerds and the ROTC’s (not on campus, during the Vietnam War and around Anti-War College students).

Fast-forward 50 years, with Moore’s Law – the doubling of chip speed every 18 months – college dropouts turned tech titans, the “evangelical” Far Right called the shots and the Army-Navy surplus shoppers (and borrowed gun) wanted to alter a lawful election.

The times they are a’changin. For certain (until musicians stepped up, once again).

Thanks to an altered and splintered media landscape, “strong men” with headsets can amass and mobilize a movement to shift to either the Left or Right (and further right), Red or Blue, Tik Tok or Tweeter trends, Meta news or Apple news. We’re more data-driven and likely defined by FICO scores and Facebook Likes, our new currency.

Self-understanding or personal reflections? Go to your room! Then after that reality check, splash on some cold water and join us, status seekers of the rat race, to climb (progress) and to strive for that one position: King of the Hill. To our surprises, after all the hustles, the ladder was found to be leaning against the wrong building all along (PBS News Hour just closed with a doctor contracted ALS, then turned compassionate towards the handicapped).

I am a mama’s boy (not to the degree as portrayed in Hitchcock’s shower scene). Took me a long time to admit that (for fear of being jeered at). Growing up in war times, it’s the macho-man manifesto: black belts preferably in all-boys school (where I found out recently, on one occasion, during a school-yard clash between two 14-year-old butt-head’s, a grenade was pulled to force a lose-lose). Talking about my Columbine.

Being the youngest, I got to stay behind (like Private Ryan, exempted from the draft): learned the ABC’s (3 languages), cleaned the house and listened to Mom (honing to pass the Med school exam for draft-deferral). Big brother and sister could fly the nest. But for me the only time I actually left home outside of short trips was when I left my home-land ( a few miles city radius, to be more truthful) for good.

One never appreciates the well until it is dried up. Turning homeless, stateless and jobless within 24 hours, all three of us (I am the youngest) got sponsored out in a hurry to find menial work in three different states (bottom of the Maslow scale again) leaving Mom, all dressed-up with no place to go, except for her three solo meals a day in Indiantown Gap refugees camp.

On my own, fending for myself in a strange land (think today’s Afghan in Eerie, PA), I still had to double back upon graduation to upgrade my role as a protector for both my Mom. Even after college, culturally (and somewhat personally) I was never endowed with “get out of the house at 18” rite of passage.

This sounds like propaganda of the ministry of War back then: ” this year, I wouldn’t come home – during Tet – out of duty for country…” i.e. a tug of war between conflicting loyalties: to the family and to the flag) ref. Duy Khanh in “Xuan nay con khong ve”.

Through college, career and families of my own, I was always mindful of not letting progress be at the expenses of my lonely Mom. Friends at Penn State visiting would find unbound hospitality from her, despite obvious language gap.

Every juncture was a tug of war e.g. taking a media job or not, grad school or not, volunteering overseas or not; my Mom was always a part of the equation: is she safe, surrounded by loved ones, well-protected (since my Pop, supposedly in that protector role, had proved unreliable – even before his involuntary decade-long apart).

Two graves later, having outgrown my child-father phase; I was so used to take on the need of strangers (as Peace Corps volunteers can attest, when you forget yourself, in the service of others, you lived a different life even with a certain degree of hypocrisy in the mix).

No one has time for self-commiserating while attending to the need of others. Golden Rule the only rule.

I was criticised for helping Boat People in Asia on my second tour: “you just want to cast yourself in a better light, to feel yourself superior over damn miserable souls” (as opposed to browsing through the OC Register Sunday Paper inserts, on which house-for-sale was listed). To put it mildly, among those miserables, a few did help themselves to fellow dead passengers for foods and survival. Talking about Maslow Scale’s in full circle.

I learned about human experience on those few trips more than all the books in the library.

My critic was perceptive- (after all he had accompanied me on my first trip) but was correct only in part. Truth was, while being back (second tour no longer found me doing Relief Work, but more of Cultural Orientation), I did immerse among fellow stateless sojourners, hence putting the climb (Maslow) on pause. That “accomplishment” is now condensed into just a by-line in my LinkedIn profile.

To me, Self-understanding and Charity are inseparable per “without love, you’re nothing”; contrary to what school and upbringing have drilled unto us: “Look out to be No 1!”. Marketers got this! and deploy bait and switch tactics, to prey (now with help from algorithm) on our unending happiness curve and to turn us into customers-hostages for life.

For a reality check without flashing cold water on my face, I still am with only two legs ( despite smoke gets in my eyes – for having tunneled in from the wrong end of the Maslow scale). My next ladder, at last look, is leaning against a building with a Karma-flashing sign – just as the one I found when doubling back for Mom, through whom all rivers flow (Vietnamese proverb).

P.S. For Mom who brought me up on her meager teacher’s salary and taught me the art of survival and self-respect. Till’ we meet again.

By the time I arrived, my refugee family had settled in and segregated from the look of family album: father and son (left page) mother and daughter (right page). Drifted South-ward, to Saigon. Then an aggressive swimmer (as oppose to lazy sperm/swimmer) met an egg that dropped. Hello it’s Me.

Then later, another aggressive swimmer, and another egg (from the other lady). Voila. My half-sister. Talking about taking the wind out of my sail.

We grew up in war times, war without and war within. My brother escaped the charade and joined the Army as a medic. I was stuck at home, drifting from one school to another: French, Vietnamese, English schools. Spared from the draft (Saving Private Ryan). Later, I purposefully institutionalised myself in camps, colleges and seminary. Structure is better. Reliable supply of foods. And predictability is preferred over chaos and in-fighting.

Been years since they confiscated all the guns and ammo in Saigon. Even the name got extinct. But our war from within rages on (like DJT lie). We just never wanted peace. We said we wanted it. But we don’t.

The hardest lesson in life is to know one’s self; from the get-go, from the swimming to the egg-dropping, from conception to maturation. Yes, we’re a joint product of two different people, personalities and purposes.

We’re re-purposed to learn the rope, clean and use it, to tow, to charge up the hill.

Many did not make it. Crashed and burned. Most times (except for Private Ryan since other boys in the family already enlisted).

It’s fun to see Graham Nash and Crosby back on the scene, to join Neil Young. It’s like the guy on Second Life, making a comeback on Metaverse where no one knows you’re a dog. Different breed and digital destination.

So from our conception – none immaculate – we’re to act “normal”, within bell-shape range, to secure social acceptance and fulfil its broad expectations.

No anomaly please. The IRS and every other institution expect their citizens to behave, to pay into the bucket and to go to bed early.

Citizens of North Korea and of the world. Hear ye, hear ye.

On a side note. That bully in my youth died of an overdose. Good to have karma around.

Or else, we’re all screwed & tricked into doing good, behaving ourselves for nothing. Sperm and the egg, united then died.

End of story. A life unexceptional. Unprovoking and unduly dull.

Let us pray. God, help us change nothing. Since we have (and are) nothing. Want nothing and get nothing. Stimulate us not, since we’re already predictably doomed from the start. We’re your obedient sheep, to be counted and led to the slaughter. Why bother creating us, after your image – of a dull God, helpless and powerless in face of Evil (uncalled-for bullies and unprovoked violence). We fear of nothing, since in your absence, we’re Home Alone, fending for ourselves with whatever means disposable: our play dough.

When there is no God, and supposedly no accompanied justice and punishment, Hell (or jail) fazes no one, resulting in the collapse of systematic theology (NYT Brooks’ piece on the dwindling and decline of the Evangelical Church)..

We’re people of multiple eco-systems: Justice system. Financial system. Educational system and Information system e.g. meta and digital verse. Grant us this life and our second life, good sperms and eggs, so we may go on in the cloud, our next life – world without end and without want. Meanwhile, evil deeds and evil men prosper. No Karma and lots of promises of pardons ( a picture worth a thousand words, and in DJT case, 100K paid to the PAC).

We stop here. Too tired of praying for peace. For there will never be peace. Only war, without and within, given unchanged hearts of men. So we tune out. Read not the front-page news. Just turn to the TV page. The weather page and the sports page. Don’t dream it’s over! Fading in sound. fade out blog. One life, one sperm.

Aggressive swimmer.

Not just doctors who took that Hippocratic oath (to heal the sick and dying).

We’re supposed to be good neighbor, to at least, close their eyes if the dead, on their own, couldn’t.

It’s human. It’s bare minimum.

But then, we keep re-inventing ourselves, then re-inventing some more until one day, even we are strangers to our very selves.

Say “cheese!” (when there are no cheese)

“I am sorry” when we did not mean it and had no intentions to change course.

“I’ll be right back” but somehow never did (just an expression).

Press “Like” when we meant to “conform”, since a lot of people had already done so ahead of us (a study proves this point: in NYC, people stopped to look up a building. Pretty soon a crowd gathered, for nothing. Just a study in human “take the kool-aid “).

Many folks – now in jail for January 6h – confirm the point: “Your honour, I was just following the President’s urging (“Fight like Hell”), the crowd’s chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and the mob pushing me (Astrodome?).

We said we’re light to the world (tear down that wall), a city on the hill.

Then we turned our backs.

Honorable Exit. Decent Interval. Peace with honour. Stalemate.

At least, animal instincts are easy to detect: they ate their preys for foods.

Our half-evolved selves leaves more for wanting. We’re not there (sainthood) just yet.

Everyone wants to have the stimulus checks. Then turn Republican (no tax, read my lips).

We’re all politicians, without running for office. Even those who pretend they might run, start campaigning and collecting money.

The hypocrisy of us, yours and mine. Let’s say during Tet, in war times, we prayed for peace (so sons and daughters could come home from the front, an equivalent of Thanksgiving) – then in peace time, that same “we” urging for war – against China over Taiwan, against Russia over Ukraine, against N Korea, over S Korea etc…).

Many musicians of protest (conscience) cannot believe they are back in the arena, to face off names like Kennedy, once on the same (progressive) side, now on the wrong side of the vaccine misinformation war.

Say “cheese”.

It’s easier to give to the guy standing at the intersection.

It’s much more difficult to give to someone the time of the day (our time is short, and that person is supposed to also be in a hurry, hence, his/her time is worth something, hence, our nearest or soon-to-be competitor).

We hold two opposing paradigms in our heads at any given point: we’re impermanent AND we’re going to live as if death only visits the other guy, never us.

We exist biologically hence simultaneously possess both animal instincts and human reflections (e.g. with others, different than us, comes strength in diversity and via collaboration and relationships we finally optimize given unity).

Yet, we say one thing, and act another. The others. Unity synonymous with uniformity.

Many cultures found men running the show, but at home, it’s their women (who actually running them.)

Hence, out of the (female) womb, indirectly, the world runs with efficiency and empathy (more male tombs, again, due to differences in praying outcomes).

We wanted to outsource our manufacturing (and associated pollution, let’s say in Baltimore and Pittsburgh).

Then our city revenues run dry (obviously, since bridges are collapsing), while in China, our final destination for all things outsourcing, bridges and railways were built by the thousands if not millions.

Then pollution drifted our way anyway (Tonga).

And in Myanmar, we pushed democracy, just to see military junta came right back, the Taliban way.

To unfreeze the funds is to help prop up a terrorist harbour. To freeze the funds, is to turn a blind eye for fathers to sell away daughters in remote Afghanistan.

The mature way is to recognize hard choices, to recognize our tolerance for ambiguity and risks. To face and “handle the truth” via compromise. No idealists, at least, not a live one.

Our hypocrisy and our hybrid selves. Since we’re on our way, but not yet arrived, just don’t just say it e.g. “till death do us part etc.. I pledge to defend the flag against …domestic enemies”. Action needs time to catch up. No wonder musicians and protestors, now have to step up, not to the stage but onto social media platform, 50+ years on, for the same fight: Scopes trial, Roe vs Wade fight etc.

It’s like “priesthood of all believers” but outsourced back to the Priestly class. Just to see a new breed of Martin Luther’s nailing their “blogs” (instead of thesis) on the church door. Except this time, many church buildings were sold to Buddhist sects, to Muslim mosques and others.

Because it’s the same ole human nature (still with instincts to eat their prey) fighting to win, for the cake :to have it and to eat it too (or else you won’t have a cake/country any more). Say “Cheese..cake”.

Saw Mr. Bernstein towards the end on ABC, when I learned about his latest come-of-age memoir: Chasing History. In it he weaved through events, both personal and national, at the Star newsroom at age of 16, typing at 90 WPM ( WPM is now a bygone acronym) while his Dad himself used to work at the Washington Star.

His debut in the newsroom brought back memories: of my own interning i.e. working for free, at an ABC-affiliate, with UPI and AP coverage through the wire – that printer ran left to right and back- teletype and typewriters plus 3 monitors up in the corner (President Johnson used to watch those 3 networks side-by-side in the Oval Office) served as guardrails of Democracy. Mr Bernstein recalled the moment of silence (except for that very noise in the newsroom) when Kennedy’s casket was moved for the last time to become Camelot, eternal memory.

Mr Bernstein alludes to American changing culture, which he coins “Cold Civil War” slowly brewed during the past 30 years, and that DJT happened to come along as an ignitor. In other words, DJT took too much credits for all the work of Ralph Reed and the likes before him (he was in Moscow paying call girls to pee on Obama’s bed, in Ireland golf course etc.. not Lynchburg, or North Carolina to tout Culture War (L’Abri) like the Schaeffers’ “How Should We Then Live series”.)

At work, in the School of Journalism library on weekends, I noticed Ad Age as the most checked out ( it’s where the bucks stop) and writers/anchors kept editing until it’s time to be on-air (one can always find a better copy on the teleprompter at the last minute). It’s the same place where Mr Bernstein’s first love (almost married to) finally ended back up: State College.

Mr Bernstein urged our ABC audience to consider the context whereby “news” were determined. If we viewed news as a concentric circle, then the outer circles would be our tribes and our cultures at large. In short, viewers are people of the system (technological and industrial complex). He mentioned Nixon. And how at the time (of him and Woodward) a nucleus of GOP folks (Goldwater?) drew a line the sand (today’s Liz) and media coverage which forced Nixon to finally realize it would be pointless to erase those tapes without consequences (prison terms, like Colson and other cohorts).

Today, we saw Cohen, our new Colson, and soon Trump’s co-conspirators e.g. from Meadows to Giuliani in handcuffs (Could you please wipe the sweats for me?).

Can’t wait for a long hot hearing, with key witnesses and key (and- soft- and- back ) lights, exactly where earlier last year, insurrectionists stormed and ransacked while hunting down number 2 and 3 in line for succession. If succeeded, America would have taken after the USSR and North Korea.

No more discussions. No more debates. And no more deals.

Just a hand-me down verdict, fake and forged, from the one who would be King “because I said so”.

America has always envied of Britain. Deep down, it still wants to “worship” royalty and autocracy, even after its ancestors had fled and sworn never to return. Then the Red Coats invaded. Then J6 insurrectionists. A manifestation of self-enslavement in the absence of Monarchy and ignorance of Modern History (and its trajectory).

We keep fumble, keep “Hail Mary”. We rush and are always in a hurry …to nowhere (ask our Sec of Transportation). 5G for quick download and upload. Grounding those regional planes. The “Hurried Child” has “Amused herself to death” (with Television and now Twitter) to the tune of 4-9 hours in front of some screens. How many can type 90 WPM, or need to, when we can scroll 90 pages per minute?

We live without context and consistency. On campus, we used to jeer at ROTC, and now we want to shop Army and Navy surplus (to keep our Oaths, but not our promises).

We used to grow hair (like Neil Young) and look at life from Both Sides Now. And now, we couldn’t even button up our pants (like Falwell Jr – once nominated for Sec of Ed , always apprehensive for fear of be walked on in the middle of an orgy).

Culture war? Cold War? Civil war? Let’s mix them all up while we chase history, on the beat or in the news room, with AP wires that churn out raw products 24/7. “Copy” and copyboys were “dispensable” (per Vicky, my 6 0′ clock news producer). But in her rare and softer moment, her Sears’ side, she let it slide and my two-minute news piece (on Scranton trash strike) got aired. For my gag reel, for school. For the team. For God and Country.

We keep pledging our Allegiance to the Flag…one Nation, Omicron, under God…then of to couch surf. Even couch surfing is now a bygone phrase, just like Mr. Bernstein’s WPM and my 3/4-inch demo tapes. All those are now history we used to chase, at a personal or national level. His last pages show us just that, where everyone ended up, most are now buried underground, having left behind great pieces of journalistic endeavours.

Bridges couldn’t wait until Biden visits for visual backdrops.

It just gives.

Like anything and everything else. It’s time.

To have that pig-heart transplant, that blood infusion or the ventilator unplugged.

Fullness of time. Expiration date.

Friday, end of work week, end of that bridge; from point A to point B, a straight line is the shortest. Not when the line is broken. Story of a once-bridge, story of our lives.

Unlike a hockey-stick graph, more than often, with more downs than ups, our lives zig-zag. Allegorically, that Pittsburgh bridge paints a picture of us, once…presided over trouble water and helped many cross-over in trouble times.

Let’s rebuild and see a re-union of Simon and Garfunkel at Grand re-opening (as Simon did a solo at One World Centre). This time there won’t be a Bin Laden for Fox’s Chris Wallace to blame. Or the 19 terrorists.

Take a look at me now…and at ourselves in the mirror. It’s us, who neglected, who did not take good care of our infra-structure (Pittsburg steelers, of all places) physical or talent infrastructure (brain drain, per TIME’s latest piece on College enrolment drifting North to CANADA…just like they once did during Vietnam War protest).

In the span of 50+ years, we have managed to move from Hubble Space Telescope to James Webb Telescope.

And we have managed to:

• ship most jobs overseas (auto assembly – Detroit – and chip/drug manufacturing – San Jose)
• automate our work (even our trucks…but still testing – our warehouse forklifting)
• before Omicron, already sent workers home to save on office cleaning and maintenance – WE (didn’t) WORK
• stop bearing children – talking about homogeneous unit principle in Church growth
• nominate De Vos and Jerry Falwell jr for our highest Education post (and DJT jr for his publisher post – touting his facebook family album, the best sellers)
• follow the one-eye Oath keepers guy : “Be sure to not break the human chain leading up the steps ” (with weapon depot stacked in Ballston, VA hotel) – to push fake electoral votes
• import new refugees, this time, from Kabul (once Saigon and once thought of as burden turned blessing)
• piss off friends and allies, accrue more debts, while forgive student binge drinking bills.

I have listed top mind stuff e.g. students once fled to Canada – conscience objectors, today, enrolled in Canadian colleges, by (financial and future) choice; whose borrowed books were asked by librarians to return. Today, it’s the borrowed gun that is argued in court.

Not just the bridge that collapsed. It’s our discipline, our habits of the heart. Our screen time that took away our social-activism time. Meanwhile, in the span of 50 years, “nerds” like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google have taken over, leaving “hill- billies” behind (not even with a smokestack)…Country Road, take me home…to nowhere on that bridge to Red countries. to covid and to leaders like Palin and Cruz, who couldn’t wait to flee to Cancun or NYC restaurant (unmasked).

I have ranted enough. Rest my case. P.S. Go Carter, go Carter. No fraying there, still with a farmer’s smile, eating peanuts, tool belt on the side, touting Habitat for Humanity. Please expand your construction services to Pittsburgh, where one of its bridges has just given in. Time served. Point A. Point B. Looking on, helplessly without a bridge. Who is coming – to stand in the middle, “blessed are the peacemakers”…

Throughout this pandemic, we rely on help: from the government, from non-profit entities and from each other. In short, we have been pastoral to one another. While President showed off the bible, and pastors urged “patriots” to take up arms, we take up alms.

Heroes for one day: a kind word here, a chocolate there.

In two years, we have done more than in two decades.

We have to. People died by the millions, while Mother Theresas only by the thousands. Quite a mismatch.

No cause for celebration there, except for the super rich and super yatch owners. What pandemic? (to them).

The CDC has to put out warnings (that islands like Bermuda and Bahamas are not omicron-immune). Super christians and super politicians saw opportunities in crisis. So are we, unsung heroes, to counter-trend : “door-dash” ing foods to covid patients.

Last year, in TX, we suffered a double dose: pandemic and near-zero temperatures. Quite a new bottom. Been a while since we experienced our peaks (where there sure be a lot of Alpha male, who up the game, per “competitive” nature). Then, if/when inside the whale, we hear not a comment on social media, nor a “scam likely” alert. Seeing a Jehovah Witness or a pair of Mormons (YMCA!) these days is quite a treat.

A video of January 6 on 11th Hour features Officer Goodman. He was turning Mitt around, leading him to safety and might have saved Mike Pence from being hung – noose ready outside. They knocked down the fortress…in tactical teams (don’t break the link…like schoolchildren on field trips), in a Medieval battle (between the Oath keepers and the gatekeepers) in formation and in gears with full assaults and aggressiveness, all out for blood. After all, everybody was on the “right” side of history (what version?), thirsty for revenge against the nerds – Big Tech and Big Government.

Meanwhile, gentle souls and quiet folks went about their daily lives: a Hallmark card here or a hot meal there on someone’s doorsteps before many of whom died. Meanwhile others were proud of their rising portfolios and pastors’ urging on: ” let’s take up arms and fight for what’s ours” “I am white, I am blonde, I hold a job….no way I am going to jail”.

When in crisis, we shared selfies (@J6), some pastoral, others prosecutorial. Hatred begets hatred. Love begets love. The ripple effect. I’d rather worships a God who is meek, who sits beside you – in the belly of the beast, or a secure location under the Dome- to the end, regardless of methods of execution.

Go ahead! cast your first stone, tighten your noose, send your forged electoral votes and spread your fake news.

Last shall be first and the humble shall inherit what’s theirs.

I am black hair, I am not white…no way I am going to Heaven (per some Nationalist versions.)

Even so, keep giving to the least … in pandemic or peace time. Be mutually pastoral till Kingdom comes when all this will be sorted out. Each other, is all we have…as orphans – on our own – to fend for one another, and to find the way home.

The Earth gave up her dead that tide,

Into our camp he came,

And said his say, and went his way,

And left our hearts aflame… Ballad by Kipling

When the fire burns, within and without just to consume one’s self, monk or me.

Rage. A contentious man, trying to bend the arc of history.

Just to see it bend itself right back. To where it used to be. To the crooked way it has always been since time eternal. Seeking Comfort in the Path of least resistance.

An Afghan selling away one of his kids, a monk died peacefully “no mud no lotus” (as opposed to his contemporaries who burned themselves for a cause).

So, what’s left of a life? a few cents of ash? a clever and catchy saying? Me Decade. Me Dead.

The “Me” generation is shrinking via attrition (most of war protesters are now in their 70’s).

Hell No we won’t go (away).

The cause, the contention and the consequences (of ill-fated decision and will imposed on world’s map).

Nuke’m.

Oh God, what have I done! (Oppenheimer marveled at destructive force of “science” unleashed – he had helped create).

Nuclear fission. Nuclear families. And now, just me and the dog named Boo.

We have lived, perhaps not as well-lived as once thought.

We quarrel over unnecessary things (emphasis on “things”). The bigger the (Costco) cart, the more argument happen outside, in the parking lot, and inside the house (bigger closet?).

We have, in a span of 5 decades, replaced ideas with materials, relationships with possession and communication with connectivity.

That’s the way it is.

No way around. Just keep it afloat, proooooooolong the status quo. Let’s set sail! Let’s cross the seven seas. Anchorless-ly to para-phase Augustine (since our soul is anchored in the heavenly anyway, in a safety deposit box).

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. And when that tomorrow turns today, we keep gofund me for the next tomorrow (the mirage effect – leading right to Las Vegas : “what happened here, stays here”. A Floridian man, 5 years in jail, felt totally broken.

I am a contentious man. I see through adult’s hypocrisy. Now, in turn, I am that adult. Full of what I have been against. In moments of self-examination and honest self-assessment, I can barely look in the mirror to give myself a C-.

To see my unwanted self. How I have turned out. The company I keep.

Society is comprised of individuals. If all were like me, then…we’re without hope.

So keep selling away your kids. Keep not raising your kids. And keep fighting for others NOT to abort theirs (15% say “under no circumstances”),

Somehow, on this day, it’s a beautiful day to die. At least for a monk, whose feet walked across the grass, and wheel chair across the lawn. No mud, no lotus. Still, what’s the point of contention? how can we live on and not see all the injustices and incongruencies? how many more MLK holidays to commiserate, without feeling like a hypocrite. Hail to MLK, Hail to the King, to Mary, to Jesus, to the Queen and Prince…(whose title and privileges recently got stripped away) and all the syncretic gods past and present. All mud still no lotus.

So back to our self-inflaming. Our selfies and our self-contained lives. Fast-forward and skip the unpleasant parts (like those damn facebook posts – you go, you snap, you pay, you print- algorithm-chosen after Norman Rockwell’s and Reaganesque).

Seek peace without justice, harmony without hope. It’s possible given our cureless amnesia. As if, we could live in a world of one, one contentious man playing Solitaire.

Icarus! keep flying high-speed non-interference with 5G toward the Sun. As high and hyperbolic, to reach the melting point of no return, of tension and contention before succumbing to the immutable law of gravity and oh well…mud.

Born to burn… hearts aflame.