Excuse me. Can I trouble you to listen to me for one minute? Yes? Fine. Just wanted to warn you about a danger you might not be aware of.
Snakes. Sharks. Poisons. Drugs that addict you. Diseases that afflict you.
You’ve heard of these. Did you know the government is doing it? No? Where do you think it all comes from? You’re a smart man (or you’re married to one). You don’t do stupid things, right? It isn’t your fault there are snakes, sharks, poisons, drugs, and diseases throughout the land. Of course not! Is it your family? No. Of course not. Is it your neighbor? No. Of course not. It’s foreigners and their liberal enablers.
Did you know that? They are hurting you on purpose.
Luckily, there is a solution. Oh, yes. A final solution. Once and for all, I can rid you of snakes, sharks, poisons, drugs and violent crime. Protect you forever. Of course, the government will try to stop me. But you’re too smart to let that happen. Just give me a little of your money. And give me your vote.
They will try to hurt me because I am your protector. But I won’t let that happen. I will protect us both. I just need you to help me help you. I just need, just for a little while, to be above the law. Then, I can be effective as your protector. And get everything we both want. We’ll get rid of all the people trying to hurt you. The bad people. They’ll be gone. The different people. They’ll be gone. The liberal people. They’ll be gone.
And when they’re all gone, of course, you’ll have far fewer problems. Far fewer. And, if your woman gets out of line, you will have the power to fix that right away. Put her where she belongs. She won’t have any choice. She won’t have any voice. It might take a little while, but not too long. I’ll fix things the way you like ‘em real fast.
Hey, you want in on the action? I need some folks to beat up some of the bad people. Can you do that for me? You can? That’s great. That’s great. You won’t be sorry. We’re going to take this country back for the real folks like you.
There we go. Wasn’t that fun? It’s kind of a waste to have two political parties, isn’t it? There’s no need. We all know what’s what. You’re a businessman, like me. Tired of taxes? No problem. I’ll cut them. Tired of rules and regulations? We’ll get rid of those too. Oh, your business will do so well!
See? Just like I said, your profits are soaring. A lot. So much, you might want to give me a little more of them just to keep things perfect like they are. A little more. Yeah, but you’ll still be way ahead. Say, that’s a cute receptionist you’ve got there. Want her? Well, now you can have her. No problem. None of that bull about consent. We know they all want it, right?
You know, your daughter’s kind of cute. I’d like to hire her myself and show her the ropes. Of course, I’ll treat her with the same respect as though she were my own wife/daughter.
What do you mean, she said I assaulted her? Nonsense. She’s not really my type. You know, for a white guy, your skin sure is dark. You’re just tan? Is that your story? No problem. We’ll just do a little DNA test. Well, look there. You’re actually not so very white after all. Well, the test doesn’t lie. We did the test. Afraid you’re going to have to be shipped out to the camps for people like you. No, don’t worry. We’ll take care of your wife and daughter. Oh, don’t worry. We’ll take care of your business too. Just sign everything over to me. Or, not. I can sign for you. What do you mean, that’s not your signature? Of course it is. I say it is. That’s the end of the debate.
What do you mean, you’ll vote for someone else next time? That’s treason, you know. You didn’t know? It doesn’t matter. People in the camps can’t vote anyway. Good bye. What other country? No, you can’t leave to go to another country. Don’t be silly!
We have walls to keep you in. And lots of guards. Lots and lots of guards. With searchlights. And machine guns. And trained dogs. We know what’s best for you. You just need a little re-education in our camps. So you remember better who is in charge of your life now. For your own benefit of course. You might get out eventually. Or you might get poisoned or beaten to death. It all depends on how loyal you are. And whether your family can prove their loyalty. To me. To me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Oh, how I love the lyrics of that song. Me. Me. Me.
Sunshine was one of my reasons for moving to San Diego. It wasn’t the most important, but it was important and I appreciate the Sunshine. For the past week, however, Sunshine took a long-awaited vacation. Apparently, Sunshine was running some sort of scam on the weather forecasters, calling up and saying, “Hi! It’s Sunshine! I’m feeling so much better today! I’ll be at work as usual tomorrow. You can count on it.
And then, when daybreak arrives the next day, it doesn’t. That is to say, when it should arrive, it doesn’t because Sunshine has overslept. Again. I suspect it might be because of all-night partying last night on the other side of the world.
You would think that the weather forecasters would catch on. You might even think that they would have seen the famous “Charlie Brown” cartoon meme in which Charlie Brown’s frienemy Lucy, promises him, year after year, that she will dutifully hold the football and not pull it away—not this time. And, dutifully, year after year, Charlie Brown decides that this will, or at least might be, the year that Lucy finally does the right thing.
But of course, she doesn’t do the right thing. And, Charlie falls flat on his back every time. Lucy smiles.
So apparently, this week, did the Sunshine. Taking vacation elsewhere and not showing more than a stray ray or two in San Diego allowed for the deluge. Other places farther north had it much worse, in terms of rainfall and damage. Worldwide, what we now call extreme weather may, in many places, become more “normal” and extreme weather will become deadlier.
In any case, I am have been just as foolish as the weather forecasters and Charlie Brown. Every day, my phone app has said the rain would be over in a day or two. And, then, two days later…same forecast is dutifully presented. But not the promised reality.
Sadie, meanwhile has been very patient about the fact that our walks have been typically much shorter all week. She has also been patient about not being allowed to dig in the dirt. More accurately, she wasn’t allowed to dig in the mud. There was no “dirt” around. It’s not idle digging. She hears and smells gophers and goes after them. Unsuccessfully. Every time. She’s dug for gophers more than the San Diego weather forecasters trusted Sunshine’s repeated false assurances that tomorrow the rain would end; indeed, even more often than Charlie Brown has over-trusted Lucy.
She persists. She enjoys the process. Maybe the weather forecasters enjoy knowing that they made everyone feel hopeful that could play tennis in a few days (or have a picnic or mow the lawn or harvest their fruit in sunshine). Maybe Charlie Brown enjoys being the kind of person who would give another one more chance to be good, even if they never take that chance than to be more cynical and realistic.
I can’t say what the motivations are for Charlie Brown and the weather forecasters, but I am sure Sadie enjoys the digging. She certainly has little care for how dirty her paws get or whether she spews mud on my shoes. My philosophy may be a mixture of Charlie Brown and the San Diego Cabal of Sun Predictors. I believe Sadie should spend some time “just being a dog.” In other words, she should be in at least partial charge of what she does and be allowed to follow her “instincts” unless it poses a true danger and not just because, say, she tracks mud into the house.
As I was watching Sadie dig, and I was sliding sideways to prevent becoming inundated with wet dirt, it occurred to me that I too, had some years of “just being a dog.” My parents, I think, thought of it as time for my “just being a kid.” In some cases, I heard adults say, “Oh, it’s just boys being boys” when we played in the dirt, fought with sticks, or had “rock wars” wherein we literally threw rocks at each other.
Not all adults were on this plan 100%. My own parents would let me play in the dirt often times, but they did not want me to participate in rock fights or stick duels. Evading those restrictions was trivial. We weren’t trying to be bad. But we knew our friends would not to try to blind us with sticks or stones. We believed implicitly that since we weren’t intentionally trying to blind each other, it wouldn’t happen.
Though there were local variations in the strictness of restrictions, we were always able to do some version of “just being a kid” which truthfully, was not all that different from “just being a dog.”
I had just as little care about muddying my shoes or fingernails as Sadie does about muddying her paws. I’d say my “dog years” were mainly between six and thirteen. Before six, my parents or other caregivers wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to get in real trouble. I mean, I managed all the usual little things like peeing into electrical outlets, throwing stuff down the “registers” (heating vents) to see what would happen, and writing in books and on walls, but there was no opportunity to have rock fights or get muddy from head to foot.
From ages six to thirteen, however, I spent a lot of time outdoors unsupervised. Plenty of time to be a dog. A few years later, however, it dawned on me that girls might find me more attractive if I were less muddy. My mother might have planted that suggestion.
There’s no doubt that many of the “instincts” I had were not very effective guides. They weren’t as effective as the knowledge that science and society had developed over centuries. On balance, I still believe having some dog years is a risk worth taking.
Before we bought a new dishwasher, a new deodorant, or a new doodad, most of us would want to read some opinions from others about the dishwashers, deodorants, or doodads we were interested in. We would want to talk to some folks who had first hand experience with those dishwashers, deodorants, or doodads.
That makes sense.
We certainly wouldn’t buy a new dishwasher, deodorant, or doodad simply because the sales person said it was going to be great. Would we?
Democracy is a difficult and time-consuming deal. It’s frustrating. And, it is likely the worst form of government there is—except for all the others.
So, before we throw it out with the dishwater because someone tells us how great a dictatorship would be instead, it makes sense to see what has happened with some of the other dictatorships that went before.
There was Mussolini. It’s said that he made the trains run on time. But would we ever really know? No, because the one thing dictatorships always have in common is that they refuse to allow others to measure, comment, or critique on what’s actually happening. Free press? Gone. Independent monitoring agencies? Gone.
The complaint department in a democracy may not always seem to listen to your particular concern. The complaint department in a dictatorship sends you to prison. If you’re lucky.
How did Italy fare under Mussolini? According to the online Britannica, nearly a half million Italian civilians and soldiers died. And in return? Nada. How about Mussolini? Oh, yeah, that’s right—beaten to death by an angry mob.
Well, we can’t make a sound conclusion based on just one customer’s experience, right?
How about Hitler? After all, he promised to make Germany great and said his Reich would last a thousand years! That must have been a pretty cool outcome. Hitler, was famously responsible for about 6 million deaths in the Holocaust, but he was also responsible for needless deaths of German soldiers, the people who died at the hands of German soldiers, and many German and other civilians. And, how did that end for Hitler? Oh, yeah, that’s right. He committed suicide rather than face the defeat of his own making.
Stalin? Surely, Stalin did better. Right? Well…in a word…no. It’s complicated. Stalin was responsible for Russian deaths by war, criminal execution, starvation due to inept government, and neglect. Here’s a link if you’d like to try to disentangle it.
Then, there was Mao. He is generally credited with the death of about 40-80 million of his own countrymen. As is often the case with totalitarian dictatorships, it’s hard to know how many died of starvation due to ineptitude and how many died of intentional cruelty.
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Once upon a time, there was a bratty kid who wasn’t very good at tennis. And, because he wasn’t very good, he cheated. And because he wasn’t even a very smart cheater, he got caught. And because he didn’t like getting caught, he destroyed all the factories that made tennis balls and told everyone else that he had done it for them. And he promised everyone that it was just a cool thing and he would make tennis much, much better because he replaced all the tennis balls with ping pong balls and that they should therefore put him in charge of officiating all tennis matches.
And, he picked the winners and losers of every game. Those people who said he was amazing and wonderful and the best tennis player ever were allowed to win. And those people who said that was nonsense were allowed to lose. Some were arrested and said to have committed suicide.
[Author’s Note: I’ve been spending time in my garden filled with varieties of texture, forms, and colors. Yet, it all seems harmonious to me. Today, I took a trip to the drug store. My senses were assaulted with garish and egotistical displays, each trying to outdo the other for my attention. I ignored it all, but I can’t help thinking there are better things for human brains to be doing that having creative people try to force me to buy a bunch of chemicals in a bright package and better things for my brain to be doing than shutting off input. Rather than assault your brain with photos from the drugstore, I have instead included pictures of bright colors from the garden. To me, these are not garish.
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