I am very sad and frightened simultaneously...

I read yesterday of the sudden deaths of two of my classmates, independent of each other, and it occurred to me, at 70+ years of age, that the fate of the Nation if not the entire civilized world depends upon the continued cardiovascular health of a man of my generation. The President appears to be strong and well and I can only hope that this state continues for a very long time for many reasons. It’s sobering any way you want to look at it.

But that’s not all, as the venerable pitchmen say on TV. It got me thinking that the weirdest stuff that can happen seemingly and actually randomly can have far-reaching effects. Not a mile away from the condominium in which I used to live, Senator John Heinz’s plane collided with another aircraft, and he died, plunging into a schoolyard filled with children. I knew some of the parents and their children who were directly affected, and one who was injured quite badly, burned over a good portion of his body, but that is not what I’m referring to. The governor replaced Senator Heinz with a former president of Haverford College, Harris Wofford, who was very strong in the issue of universal healthcare, and it was the beginning of the push to improve coverage within the United States , but that is also not what I’m referring to. Former governor, Dick Thornburgh ran against this senator and thought he would just walk into the seat, but the pundits, the pollsters, and the professionals were quite wrong about that, as they are so often wrong about so much.

The Republicans grossly miscalculated the strength of this issue, and Pennsylvanians were tired of the former governor spending all his time at the Duquesne club pontificating about how he was a great attorney general and dispatched him to the “former“ category permanently. My point of course, is that in a crazy random way, enormous events occurred following a random impossible-to-predict event, the particular nature of which in our lifetime will almost certainly not happen again.

Interestingly, the ship which struck the bridge in Baltimore is another of these random events. Clearly, there is much blame to go around with respect to the sailing and maintenance of this vessel , but the one thing we know is that there will be a tremendous ripple effect emanating from it. We will have to see what happens over the long haul.

As an amusing afterthought, although it truly is not funny, because of the seriousness of this issue, is that the same people who became experts on vaccination, experts on rocket launching and moon landings, experts on the plot of the Kennedy family, to resurrect all of its dead individuals and rule the world, experts in the biological basis of behaviors, and the effects upon them, by chemtrails, experts in absolute morality and legitimate faith in God, their God, experts in astronomy and other world, including the shape of our planet, as opposed to all the other planets, and importantly, experts in being all-knowing about any subject, which the right wing propaganda and hate machine decides, is the issue du jour. One day it’s a football player who kneels during the National Anthem, the next it’s Taylor Swift, the next it’ll be…who the heck knows? Just think, perhaps you might be in a supermarket, or driving up to your relative’s home, or at a museum or doctor’s office, and something will randomly occur that will put you on the front page of newspapers all over the country. Whatever occurred, whatever happened at that moment will, in the matter of just a few hours, be unrecognizable after the hate machine gets finished with it.

These people have caused untold misery for many and if there is a Hell as so many of them believe there is, it would be remarkable to overhear their oh-so-righteous negotiations with the Devil’s emissary, attempting to justify their lies, aberrant behaviors, and grotesque hypocrisy. A devilish sardonic smile will be the reply. One can only hope.