GRIEF, ANGER AND FRUSTRATION

A REMEMBRANCE - A year ago I wrote HERE about the passing of a friend - a man I'd known since the first day of kindergarten.  It was a melancholy remembrance, posted to mark a major change in my life - a time when more and more friends and acquaintances depart their earthly ties.

ONCE MORE - Early this morning I wrote on my Facebook page about the passing of a very dear friend and neighbor, Barry Mason, yesterday evening.  My wife and I spent a few hours at his home comforting his long-time companion and helping her deal with the necessary details involved with this kind of a situation.

THE POTOMAC PLANE CRASH - Meanwhile, most of the country was glued to their televisions, watching the coverage of the crash between a commercial airliner and a military helicopter over the Potomac River adjacent to Reagan International Airport in Washington, D.C., looking for explanations and grieving the 67 souls lost in that tragic accident.  None were yet forthcoming.

IDIOT-IN-CHIEF - I awoke a little late this morning - I didn't actually hit the sack until around 3 a.m. as I contemplated the passing of my neighbor.  I immediately called his companion to be sure she was doing OK, then checked communications from friends and found several expressing outrage at the comments being made by President Donald Trump about the air accident.  When I finally dragged myself out of bed, cleaned up a little and, through bleary eyes, I watched replays of  news reports of the accident, including Trump's comments.  I was stunned by the thoughtless, heartless, ignorant speculation he was spewing to the world on the issue.  He had already decided the accident was due to misguided DEI hires and was blaming the Biden administration - before a single fact about the crash had been authenticated!  All the while,  loved ones of the crash victims are looking for the truth, not speculation by the President, yet, that's what they, and we, are getting.

SAME AS THE FIRE INFORMATION - This kind of uninformed, speculative, bloviations were exactly the kind of bilge he puked out at the press event after touring the Palisades Fire site last week.  He chided state and local officials for not "turning on the spigot" to route more water from the Pacific Northwest to quash the fires - which, according to actual knowledgable experts, would not have helped with 100+ mph winds fanning the fires.  He consistently fails to grasp his depth of ignorance on important issues (I guess that's kind of redundant, huh?)

GRIEVING MORE THAN THE LOSS OF FRIENDS - Today, running on fumes, I continue to grieve the loss of my dear neighbor and friend.  Today I also grieve for our nation that has elected an ignorant,  callous, thoughtless bully as the President of the United States.  I grieve because, based on his public utterances and actions after only a few days in office, he shows us the path he is planning on taking this country over the next 1,451 days - and I'm terrified!

DESTROYING THE ECONOMY, ALIENATING ALLIES AND PROVOKING ENEMIES - Every day we see him perform acts and making statements that seem aimed at destroying the very foundation of this country - the Constitution!  Time after time he attempts to toss aside portions of that document designed to provide protection for us all from abuse of power and - dictatorship!

APPOINTING INEXPERIENCED SYCOPHANTS AND BOOTLICKERS - We've seen him nominate some candidates for senior advisory positions who bring almost no relevant experience to the job - just blind loyalty to the man himself.  This reeks of behavior of a certain World War II dictator who began exactly the same way - and I am terrified.

HIS BEHAVIOR SHOWS US JUST WHO HE IS - Trump has demonstrated that he is a mean-spirited, vindictive, ignorant human being throughout his life and with recent actions.  During his first tour as President he surrounded himself with old hands in government - men and women of great character who actually understood the jobs and tried to do them to the best of their abilities.  Trump fired many of them when they pushed back on his inane proposals.  Since taking over two weeks ago he has cancelled protections provided to a few of them - protections necessary because of their actions and views expressed in their service to this country made them subject of death threats by foreign governments and others.  Without careful contemplation of the impact of his actions he issued a few dozen Executive Orders, many of which gut existing programs and place tariffs on goods from countries that will certainly impact American consumers in a very negative way.  He bellows brainless screeds, then is forced to have his staff backpedal when legal challenges are put forth.  He is a blustering, brainless buffoon who poses a real threat to our form of government and way of life.

FINGERS CROSSED - So, sleep-deprived as I am this afternoon, I will do my best to contemplate a bright future for our country as real, honest-to-goodness fine human beings like my neighbor pass on.  As a friend recently reminded me, Tocqueville told us that we will get the government we deserve.  Will we ever learn?

PRESIDENT TRUMP ON THE CALIFORNIA FIRES

Last Friday President Trump marked "disaster Friday" by first visiting the North Carolina site of the carnage caused by Hurricane Helene, then flew directly to the Los Angeles area where he helicoptered over the Palisades Fire site, ignoring the larger and more destructive Eaton Fire site.  Following that flight he and his wife participated in a "round table" discussion with federal, state and local officials.  This was widely covered by local and national media.  I observed the entire session and wrote about it on my Facebook page.  The following is the text of what I wrote.

VIEWING TRUMP AND FOUR-LETTER WORDS...

Around 5 p.m. Friday afternoon I began watching television coverage of President Trump on his tour of the Palisades Fire site and the subsequent "round table" (even though the table was not "round" but in a "U" shape).

GRATEFUL... BUT

First, I'm very grateful to the President for taking the time to visit the sites of the Hurricane Helene disaster in North Carolina and then flying across the country to view our catastrophic site - or one of them.  I thought it was interesting that, for some reason, he chose to not fly 10 minutes away over to the Eaton Fire site - where more homes and businesses were destroyed - to give him a more complete perspective on the carnage caused two weeks ago.  The cynic in me thought he chose the Palisades site (including Malibu) because it was the location of much wealthier residents.  The Eaton Fire destroyed the homes of many more middle class families - and most of them were black.  Just a thought

.

WATCHING AND LISTENING

During the press event a wide array of local, state and national politicians were present, along with many senior public safety leaders and a few "regular" people.  During the lead-in to the event he met many firefighters and was presented with a firefighter helmet with "47" emblazoned on it.  He lugged it around proudly (mentioning that firefighters must be in good shape because the helmet was very heavy) and displayed it on the table in front of him during the chat he held with those present.

PAINFUL, PAINFUL, PAINFUL!

As I watched him express concern for the devastation he'd just flown over, and the angst expressed to him by "several people" who lost their homes, I became very frustrated and disappointed as he devolved into a teenager in a 78 year-old man's body - his normal modus operandi when he's flying solo without a teleprompter.  I don't for one second doubt his sincere concern, but I just can't abide his juvenile presentation when he couldn't help but expose his inner-bully. 

 

INFANTILE, ILL-INFORMED

I found myself yelling many, many four-letter words at the TV screen as he presented "facts" that were falsehoods.  Somewhere in the recent past one of his salivating sycophants must have told him that "all they need to do to fight those kind of fires is just turn on the tap from the Pacific Northwest and Canada so they'd have plenty of water", because that's the bilge he spewed many times during the event.  Several news organizations "fact checked" him following this event, demonstrating the untruth of many of his pronouncements.

IT WAS ALL ABOUT HIM..

Throughout the event it was clear that he thought the whole thing was about him, and what a wonderful President he was (his words) for visiting and "helping".  Time after time he made that point - observing that "a previous President" wouldn't have done this.  I found myself yelling "WTF" and other epithets at the screen.

"CONDITIONING" THE HELP

Earlier in the day he had told the world that for California to receive federal aid in recovering from the fires it would have to meet certain conditions, including voter ID and cleaning the forests!

 

PERMITS

During one screed - several times, actually - he demanded that the permitting process be basically abandoned so people - apparently those wealthy folks who lost homes with whom he had just spoken - could "clean up their lots" and get started re-building "tomorrow"!  He showed no signs of actual knowledge about the process of remediation of those disaster sites.  He apparently was willing to let the property owners dive right into the toxic residue of the fires with a shovel and wheelbarrow, ignoring the danger involved.  State and local leaders had already laid the groundwork for streamlining the permitting process. 

ADIOS, FEMA

One of the more interesting pronouncements he made was to imply pretty clearly that he was going to shut down the Federal Emergency Management Agency - FEMA.  Apparently he heard horror stories in North Carolina earlier in the day about the "poor performance" of FEMA personnel at that disaster site.  So, he was considering shutting the whole thing down and just turn the keys to the recovery bank over to one person - maybe his pal, Rick Grenell, who was sitting beside him.  Yikes!

"LOOK AT ME!  I'M STUPID!"

 Again, our President is more than willing - yes even enthusiastic - to demonstrate his ignorance on important issues, and then compound the issue by jabbering juvenile stream-of-consciousness gibberish attempting to make his point. He does this time after time and it's terrifying to contemplate what kind of exchanges he must have with more mature, well-educated, intelligent heads of state.

THANKS, MR. PRESIDENT

So, I want to thank President Trump for coming out to see the devastation and helping folks understand the scope of the damage.  Now, please, Mr. President, just get out of the way, send us the money, let the professionals do their jobs and STFU!

SAYING GOODBYE TO SANTA

 I posted this sad news on a couple Facebook pages today.

SAYING GOODBYE TO SANTA

My dear fellow Panthers, it is with great sadness that I advise you that our schoolmate, Lowell Hendrickson has passed away. Lowell, a fellow Winter '59 Tyrian, was discovered deceased at his home last week after neighbors expressed concern about his absence in the community. 

As some know, for many years Lowell has portrayed Santa Claus during the holiday season. He was extremely enthusiastic about his role as the jolly old elf and attended many training sessions to perfect his role. Since his retirement as a Landscaping Supervisor for the Los Angeles Community College District he has remained "in character" throughout the year - helping to spread the holiday spirit all year long.

To our knowledge Lowell left no immediate relatives, but our classmate and friend, Larry Smith, did some legwork and located a cousin in Iowa, to whom we extend our deepest condolences.

Lowell was a very kind soul who attended our periodic luncheons and enjoyed mingling with us, his old (we're all old now) schoolmates. He will be deeply missed. We have no information about services for our friend. Rest In Peace, Santa.