Buckle Up

Well, time does fly, and not just when we're having fun. 

When I'm asked a question involving time —someone's age, how long since I moved back to Columbia, even the dates either of my parents left this world—my answer would be the same: I don't do time math. I don't. And I don't mean to sound ike a smartass with my response.It's the best I can do. I will look those things up if the querant seriously needs answers.  I simply don't register or recall the passage of time numerically. Times and events in my life are remembered in various swaths of memory, something like impressionist paintings. Sometimes there's detail, sometimes not.

All that to say it's been a while since I've been here at Lucy Left, and a lot has happened in the world and country we live in. Quite a lot is happening daily now, sometimes hourly, since Donald Trump returned as president of these United States. It's been about a year and a half of the second term of Trump 2. Many surreal days when the Executive Branch is making headlines in what remains of print media or digital media...and almost always they have a big chunk of the first block, often the lead, in broadcast news. 

Media heads spin trying to cover it all, and cover it they do. All the while being attacked, discounted, and derided by the Executive. The President has his own social media company, and he posts regularly, often at odd nocturnal hours, then later falling asleep in meetings.The heads of consumers of news spin as well; that is, except  those who have become former news consumers. It actually scares me to think about the people I know personally who purposely no longer try to keep up with what's happening to our Democracy. The news sources I rely on have my respect for their sometimes lonely adherence to ethics and the considerable fact-checking they undertake; some others have an easier time keeping up because they don't seem to be burdened with accuracy in reporting or ethics. They seem most concerned about pleasing the President and making him look good, or at least better than facts in current circumstances indicate. 

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." — Potter Stewart

The intensity of the political world (a world I have known well most of my life) has made any sort of useful periodic news-writing daunting at best. Nearly every situation is "important" or at least relevant because so much that happens has to do with the weakening of our democratic form of governance. 

For now, I'd like to share a song about how I see our democratic republic at this time. I wrote the lyrics. Son Glenn set them to music, and some generous volunteer musicians made the recording. Heartfelt thanks to each and all! 

Note: it's a single recording, available at Spotify, "World Gone Mad the 34".

https://open.spotify.com/track/65kB525Yp6kzJ3FUuzlC3F?autoplay_ok

Please feel free to hold me accountable, Democracy lovers, because I'm damn sure planning to forge ahead and post something here regularly. Actor Robert De Niro , talking about our Democracy and having a chance to get it back on track,  said "We all have to get out there". [and do something.]Come out of the shells we've constructed (perhaps  to ease the insult of chaos, the shocks, the unkindness, even horrifying cruelties of Now. We can't act with our heads in the sand. We must get "out there" and speak up and out, "even when our voices shake." And one way I can get "out there" is on social media and here at Lucy. I will fact check here but won't promise the time elements will be dependably sequential. Listen to the song.

Important end note:  If you aren't already subscribed to Heather Cox Richardson's daily "Letter from an American", kindly google her. What she has to say is consistently clear and concise, impartial and accurate. This historian-college professor lists her sources, footnotes, and links. She makes it easy to get back in touch with Earth 1 where I live. We might be neighbors on this planet.

Correction: Health Cox Richardson IS partial. To facts.  To the truth.