Author: Tom Fitzpatrick

Life

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I once worked in a company where everyone, and I mean everyone, hated the Vice President for Human Resources. Being new to the corporate environment, I asked an executive in the know why then does she keep her job then. He just laughed and said she knows where all the bodies are buried, implying, in the process, that the President of the Company was greatly dependent on her discretion because of his many indiscretions. This analysis was proven correct because when a new President took over and she was the first person shown the door.

Which brings me to Pam Bondi. One of the dangers of firing and humiliating someone who knows where the bodies are buried is that person, once removed from office, can opt for revenge. I don’t know how angry Bondi is, I am hoping really pissed off, but she might, if sufficiently pissed off, be willing to reveal the graveyard map of Trump’s many indiscretions.

I do know that she was given an impossible job with high expectations from an unreasonable boss. Since she failed to satisfy the tyrant, her professional reputation in tatters because she tired to keep in happy and was humiliated by the boss in the process, she has absolutely nothing to lose any more and might be willing to point people to the relevant graves. Given Trump’s experience with troublesome ex-employees, I suspect he has paid Bondi off in some way or has something on her that will buy her silence. On the other hand, as the old saying goes: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, we might be in for a summer of fun.

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I was watching the trial by 7 (a joust of 7 men against 7 men) match in the new Game of Thrones iteration “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” and it dawned on me on how attracted human beings are to violence even in our games. Think boxing, rugby, football, hockey. Think the games at the Roman Colosseum.

Even more interesting is that men will engage in these games, despite the very real danger which could include death. Think about in the modern world people continue to play football even after numerous medical studies have concluded that irreparable damage is being done to the brain. People continue to watch.

Vivid depictions of violence are seen every day in television shows and movies. People might complain but people, nonetheless, continue to watch.

Why is it so fucking attractive?

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I think if you want to get plastic surgery and it makes you happy, by all means, get it.

I won’t. Mostly because it won’t make me happy. I just don’t have the time or the energy or the money to keep working on my looks. It is, after a certain age, a losing battle.

No matter how much plastic surgery I get, I am still 68 years old. A 21 year old guy, even just a regular old 21 year old guy, not some super good looking movie star/model type of guy, walks into the room and then I walk into the room. The half way good looking 21 year old guy has me beat. By a mile. By 10 miles. By 100 miles. If I get talked about at all, which, let’s face it, is a very big if, it won’t be about my good looks but on how he has had work done.

Then there is the cost. People who I know investigated plastic surgery are talking thousands of dollars and, with my luck, it will turn out making me look worse. I know some people who have had excellent plastic surgery. I also know people who were disappointed with their surgery (see awful plastic surgery). It is a roll of the dice and if I am rolling the dice, I would much rather be rolling the dice in Las Vegas than rolling it on surgery.

Besides, I am that age where I need procedures and surgeries just to stay healthy. If I were to also get plastic surgery with the other surgeries I need, I might never leave the hospital. I just don’t want to take up residence in a hospital, at least not yet.

At this point in my life, I would rather fall back on my vast supply of charm and joie de vivre than attempt to alter my looks any further.

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Donald Trump acknowledged that he calls the Iranian military operation instead of a war because of legal reasons. Congressional Authorization, then, boils down to what the President calls his action rather than a universal understanding of what war is. You say potato, I say … Sorry, that old saying does work in writing but you catch my drift. Also, just as a reminder to the President, parsing phrases to avoid the unlikely retribution of Congress only really works if you don’t tell everyone what you are doing otherwise, in legal terms, this is known as a confession.

But, never mind — a military operation it is. This military operation has been going on a good month. Now I can quibble, and I will, about bombs and targeted assassinations being acts of war, but, say I wanted to be generous to Trump here, and agree with his characterization of those actions as being a military operation instead of a war.

When does a military operation become a war? And, just like that, an answer appears — when you send 50,000 ground troops. Bombing plus troops surely adds up to war. Or are we in some semantic Hell where Trump can call a war anything he wants and the Congress will agree to in order to avoid the wrath of Trump’s more rabid supporters. Apparently it is semantic Hell.

This whole operation is caught up in different definitions of words. Trump supposedly can only act without Congressional Authorization if it is an emergency. The USA would have to be in immediate and grave danger. My understanding of this power would be an impeding attack of USA was about to take place. There is absolutely no evidence that this was the case.

But the Iranians were trying to restart their nuclear program. No doubt, however, according to Trump the Iranian nuclear program was destroyed in a previous attack so the idea that so the idea that the Iranians had miraculously resurrected their nuclear capability to the point of an immenent attack is unbelievable. I am fairly certain there was more than enough time for Congress to review the problem and give its consent.

The Iranian, dare I call it, War is a disappointing display of hubris on the part of Trump and cowardice on the part of Congress. The whole point of Congressional Authorization for wars is that war is a serious business for a country. If we are going to take on such a responsibility it needs to come after careful consideration from the body that represents the all the people of the USA. For wars, particularly messy and potentially long term commitment wars to be won, everyone needs to be on board. This has not happened.

Instead we have semantic parsing of words so one man can drag a nation of 300 million plus people into a war dressed up like a military operation.

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The other night I got reacquainted to Patty Griffin’s song Let Him Fly. It is a song about a woman breaking up with a man who isn’t ready, if he ever would be, to settle down. He isn’t a bad man just a wandering man, he honestly tells her this and she had some hopes of keeping him even though he told her so but she now realizes it is hopeless so she surrenders to her fate and lets him go.

Her lyrics are filled with sadness but absent of anger which carry the heavy weight in most break up songs. There is none of this you are a rotten son of bitch and I don’t know why I put up with you so long which consume most break up songs. It is sad without being vindictive. She loves him but she needs something more than he is willing to give. Two mismatched people instead of one good one and one evil one.

The song is spare — just a guitar and Griffin singing in her clear strong voice. At times you can barely hear her guitar, it follows her singing but does not direct it. I could imagine her singing this song a cappella.

Even though her album cover is for more than one song, it really fits the mood of “Let Him Fly.” It looks like someone crumpled up photograph of Griffin and then, having second thoughts, retrieved it from the trash bin because he decided he wanted to keep it. It certainly captures the spirit of the song.

I highly recommend Patty Griffin’s “Let Him Fly.”

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As I get older, I am beginning to understand my peculiarities that stumped me before but are beginning to make sense now. I used to think I hated shopping. Any shopping. I did everything in my power to get in and then get out with whatever I thought I needed.

I thought, for the longest time, this hatred of shopping placed me on some superior moral ground. The capitalist overlords failed to entice me into a life of mindless consumerism. Something occurred to me as I was dodging super large shopping carts in Costco the other day. It isn’t so much that I hated shopping, it is more that shopping overwhelms me. I can feel my nerves begin to jangle every time I enter a store.

I can manage shopping if I have a list with specific items to be acquired by the time I return home. I find. I buy. I leave the store as quickly as possible. I rarely, if ever, will buy more than what is on the list. The list is sacrosanct.

On the other hand just lallygagging in a store to kill time almost always ends the same way — me fleeing after a few minutes without purchasing anything.

For example, I love to read so bookstores should be heaven for me. Not by a stretch. I want to purchase almost every book I pick up. Everything sounds like something I would like to buy, so much so that I reach fairly quickly a point of indecision. I can’t choose anything because I want everything which I know that I neither can afford nor will ever find the time to read them. So I punt and buy nothing.

Big ticket items provide a somewhat different problem for me. I don’t have a vision of what I want. If I am buy a car, all I want is something that moves me from place to place with a minimum of problems. A lot of friends I know walk into car lots with a strategy of getting specific things they want, and how to maneuver the salesman into giving them the deal they want. They know all the bells and whistles they want to purchase. All I want is a compact white Ford.

Worst of all, choice just baffles me. The more options I have the more stumped I become. Two or three choices I can manage. More than that I am wondering how I can get out of this showroom without looking like an asshole.

What I am saying is that shopping is overwhelming for me. I don’t so much hate it as all these products and choices leave my mind so overstimulated that I my mind is whirling with all the choices and I become exhausted and all I want to do is go home and take a long nap. This is why I hate shopping.

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The problem that many people, including myself, have with Donald Trump is he is, above all else, an asshole extraordinaire. That this detestable prick is president of the United States is both extremely depressing and a source of conflicting feelings about what he does.

So let me lay it out for my present destress:

  1. I dislike Donald Trump and disagree with most, if not everything, he does.
  2. I like the United States. It is my home.
  3. Donald Trump is the president of the United States.While I think he is a fuck up and fucking up everything he lays his tiny hands on, he also leads my country.
  4. I want my country to succeed whenever possible.

Which leads to the question, how can I hope for the best for my country with this miserable little shit running the country?

For example, the war with Iran. I think it is a big mistake. On the other hand, I think the world would be a worse place if the United States lost it. Muslim extremism, chaos in Iran and in the neighboring region, Women’s rights, Gay rights, things could get a whole lot worse if he were to lose. I can’t see how any of this would be better if the United States lost.

But, then, Trump is such a detestable man, if he wins, he will take credit for the victory and thus become even more insufferable. He will think he is smarter than he actually is and will continue governing as he had thinking he is wiser than he is. Thus making him even more likely to make even more risky decisions because he keeps rolling the dice and coming up a winner.

My one fond hope, though highly unlikely, is that Trump will be forced to work with Congress and our Allies to obtain a settlement that frees Iran from Muslim extremism while also bringing some peaceful resolution to the troubles in the region. So what I want, I guess, is for Trump to succeed only after he throws himself on the mercy of Congress and our Allies in order to ensure the victory.

Barring that, all I see is a mess.

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Every day, every new outrage, and I think is this the one that is going to bring the whole rotting edifice down but, to my surprise, the rickety all structure is still standing.

Yet the rot is so pervasive that almost anything could bring it down. It is both remarkably sturdy and remarkably vulnerable at the same time. How does it survive all this rot? Then I take a deep breath and remember, oh, right, now I remember — I am the problem. The present system, as configured, is all I know. Whatever comes next is unknown. This mystery is more than a little frightening. I want the system, with all its flaws, to survive.

It isn’t encouraging that every idea I have heard regarding change now seems to involve a bit of violence. It is mostly this fear of violence that keeps me firmly on the side of the present system for all its problems. There still is the notion of democratic give and take as the best way to resolve our problems despite the rot. I maybe wrong but the risk of political violence seems, at present, unwarranted.

What I fear though is this reflexive support for democracy is waning. To what I do not know. I do know that blood on the streets is to be avoided mostly because the idea is always that it will be the bad guy’s blood (read here the people who disagree with me) and not the good guy’s (read here the people who agree with me) blood. But we all know that once blood starts flowing, both good guys and bad guys bleed the same color and it is horrible.

I don’t have the answer but I do know this — the present approach seems to be a shouting match where the only way to win is to outshout the other guy. The gerrymander wars shows two sides with little confidence that either can win through the political process so they redraw the lines to keep their power. People appear to be giving up on changing minds through persuasion and creating imperfect but workable institutions through compromise.

And all we have is the rickety and rotting system to defend us in the coming political storm. It is a bit unsettling to think about.

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One of the vows I made when I started exercising many years ago was that I would never exercise when injured or if I felt sick. If I screwed up a knee or had a cold, I waited a couple of days and then start with a less vigorous routine until I returned to normal. Once I was back to good health, I returned to my routine. This has served me well.

Until now, at 68, it is impossible not to exercise without being sick or injured or both because I am always one or the other. If I stopped exercising every time I was sick or injured, I am afraid I will never return to exercise at all. It is that difficult for me to find a block of healthy days for me to keep this youthful promise to myself.

So another broken promise to myself in a string of broken promises to myself.

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The one thing that keeps haunting me about Jeffrey Epstein is how many seemingly decent people knew something was wrong but did nothing. How can this be? Whenever I think the Holocaust, I think it couldn’t happen again because surely somebody would speak up before things got out of hand. Yet, Epstein Island, the Lolita Express come along to prove me wrong.

Jeffrey Epstein is a very small part of the problem too. There will always be assholes but, hopefully there are more decent people willing to stop injustice. This didn’t happen, at least, not for the longest time. Workers at his home, guests for the weekend all just continued on as if this was a normal way for a rich man to behave. Who am I to stop him?

There is the crux of the problem here when someone has money and power. What can I do stop him and, more importantly, what can he do to hurt me. Being in the warm sunshine of wealth and power has a price and that price is silence to their crimes. Who wants to tangle with a billionaire? They have more money and will probably win any legal struggle and not before bankrupting you.

The rich and powerful sometimes pay the price but, more often than not, they get off scot-free.

And it is still going on. All the lawyers redacting documents at the Department of Justice — marking through the names of the rich and powerful people who Epstein entertained — shielding them from justice for a few more years as many of these suspects race with death. Why exactly are they being protected? Their reputations?

I disagree that they should get this protection if all they did was spend the weekend with a known sexual predator, but it is something I could live with if I believed that anyone who partook of more than food, drink and place to sleep were being pursued. But, unless I am missing something, redaction also means the end of any investigation into what happened on Epstein Island, so I say fuck them, embarrass away. Embarrass so they lose their jobs. Embarrass so they can’t show their faces at Cape Cod. Embarrass so they can’t get their kids into elite schools.

If they are avoiding prison, they can, at the very least, be forced to hang their heads in shame. These seemingly decent people didn’t act and, if they get away with it, they will continue to keep their mouths shut as the rich and powerful continue their crime spree through 21st century America.