July 4th, 2026 will be a wake, not a celebration of freedom.
One specific social media post says it best:
Category Archives: Just bitchin’
#Ukraine and The Words We Think
Countless images of heartbreak and horror are burned into my memory as Russia’s war against Ukraine continues.
A woman weeping over the bloodied corpse of her dog, killed by Russian artillery as they went for their morning walk.
A child in an underground shelter standing before others also in hiding, singing a song from the movie Frozen. The one with the brave, defiant lyrics “Here I stand and here I’ll stay. Let the storm rage on. Cold never bothered me anyway.”
Bodies abandoned along streets. A smear of red where once there was a head.
My sympathy has changed to white-hot rage.
It isn’t enough to decry the death and damage inflicted on people who had no voice in the inception of Russia’s war, Putin’s war. But for one man’s greed, one man who sits at a safe distance, all this could have been avoided.
And now that man is joined by a United States president and his cowardly cohorts.
For the first time in history, the U.S. stands with the dictator, the aggressor, the slayer of Democracy.
And my rage is overwhelming. I, who had always said that, no matter who holds it, the title of President of the United States commands respect have nothing but loathing to offer.
Everyone keeps saying “Don’t speak out. You’ll get in trouble. None of us can say what we really think.”
Done with that.
I have no way of stopping any person or event. I am far away and devoid of resources. But I won’t be quiet anymore.
I want Trump’s flesh flayed from his bones and fed to dogs starving and abandoned in war-ravaged streets.
I want a coup like that of January 6, 2021. But I want it to succeed in routing out the vermin who support Trump and Putin. I want that scaffold he intended for Mike Pence re-erected.
I want Trump to wear that noose.
I resent the hate and anger he has incited in me.
Two bullets might have spared Ukraine and the world so much. A horrid thought I had never believed would be mine.
Is it too late?
Are we angry enough yet?
Have we lost enough yet?
Silence is not an option. Protests and demonstrations are tools of a bygone era. We need new ammunition to stop what is happening.
What weapon will we choose?
All I have are words.
Noted
Upon death, you decompose.
Previously, you were composed.
A composition.
Something pieced you together, note by note.
Each note placed just…so.
A part of the symphony.
You were orchestrated.
Are you an echo?
Perhaps a variation on a theme.
Will anyone hear you?
At best, you are a sonata of unknown duration.
Noted.
Faithless
Been bumping heads with so many Christians lately.
I find this odd, because I consider myself a Christian, and, even if Man invented religion and splintered it into so many sects that it bears no resemblance to its first and oldest emergence, the basic tenets should remain as touchstones for all.
In the trauma that is the Trump administration and the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, however, a different kind of light is beginning to shine on my personal beliefs. This is of no interest to anyone other than myself. Still, I feel compelled to write it out.
Because that’s what I do when I feel the need for comfort or clarity or a clarion call.
So…
There is a sense of entitlement that pervades all major religions; a conviction that yours is the best of all possible paths to reach the highest spiritual destiny. It takes a certain amount of enlightenment to acknowledge that your private path is really only ‘right’ for you. It takes a certain amount of tolerance to understand that all the divergent paths that bolster millions of people and are dissimilar to yours, are still and always viable, valuable means of spiritual direction.
Many intellectually grasp this. Few practice it.
For most, the strictures of their religion are the guiding principles by which they try to live. No one succeeds completely, but, when faced with conflict or a major juncture of your life, you try to apply these principles. They form the part of you where honor and dignity and compassion intersect. How much effort you put into living according to these precepts when the chips are down is a defining aspect of your character.
There’s a lot of bad out there. It’s hard to watch. It’s hard to know there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s hard to know that the only recourse you have is to set an example by holding yourself to your personal standards. It’s hard to realize you’re not the best example. All you can do is try.
The catch is, the people you see as reprehensible think they’re doing exactly what you are: setting an example of how they wish others would live.
I’ve been angry and confused and upset about the things people have said to me and posted on social media to me. These are people who think they represent the highest and best that faith has to offer: God’s law. They blast me with their Christianity and make it clear how sad they are that I don’t fall in line behind them and support their beliefs so they can be that much surer of those beliefs themselves.
It took a headline from the Associated Press in the wake of a hurricane to break through and shed a little light on my troubled musings. The oversized type caught my eye.
Black, white, rich, poor: Storm Harvey didn’t discriminate
And I understood.
I wish for a society that would treat people the way Nature does. Indiscriminate. Colorless. Shorn of faith and creeds. Equal. In a way that says all the outer trappings…the accents, manners, ethnicity, positions and possessions are ultimately unimportant.
That’s not necessarily the way God does things, nor Jesus. Not if you listen to the Christians who’ve been haranguing me. To them, there is…and SHOULD be…preferential treatment for those gathered around the cross at church every Sunday.
So maybe I’m not a Christian after all. Maybe I’m merely a person of conscience and spirit.
I hope so.
I think I like that better.
The Nature of Expansion
“Your problems are so big compared to mine.”
Not really.
The thing about problems is their intense individuality.
There is no large.
There is no small.
The thing about problems is their ability to expand, to reach into every corner of your life.
Your intellect tells you that losing a loved one is so much more devastating than losing a job. But the heart engages on a different level. Both misfortunes expand, consume, fill. The sufferer’s life is colored; time divided into a Before and an After.
Lost loved one.
Lost job.
Lost pet.
Lost reputation.
Lost limb.
Lost opportunity.
Lost love.
Illness.
Pain.
Misunderstanding.
Unfulfilled desire.
There is no large and there is no small.
There is full, and there is free.
Use this knowledge of volume for compassion.
And for hope.
Mental Manipulation
Sometimes the most amazing discoveries are accidents; things stumbled upon and only recognized in slow increments by very ordinary people.
If you have ADD…if your child has ADD…if you or a loved one have OCD…or any unspecified anxiety…
…try this.
Cover the logo that TV channels habitually place on the screen.
Cut out a piece of cardboard or construction paper or a bit of plastic from a garbage bag…preferably black; something that doesn’t demand attention or catch the eye. Place it over the area where the channel’s logo usually appears.
Cover it.
Make it go away.
The effect will be immediate.
Try it.
If it works, if there’s a discernible difference in being able to immerse yourself in the programming, or in being able to relax because your brain’s focus is no longer being manipulated…cut out more shapes, more sizes, of cardboard or paper or plastic…whatever is needed to cover the logos and unwanted messages.
Feel the difference.
Try it.
Your perception will reset. And your brain might thank you.
Weaving Ugly Cloth
It’s all coming together.
The disparate threads are entwining, interlocking, forming a pattern.
The first thread grew out of the internet.
Social media had the potential to unite; to form global communities. It could bond, and reach out, and relieve loneliness, and provide information, and ease troubled souls. But, as sure as human nature, the flip side raised its head: trolls. The veil of anonymity and distance enabled anyone and everyone who felt a dark impulse or a sudden spike of anger or hate to express themselves with consequence-free impunity. So easy to lash out and then ignore your victims. So easy to turn off your device with the smug knowledge that you ‘got away with it.’
The second thread came from reality TV.
In order to pull in viewers, behavior that would never have been tolerated previously was encouraged. When it didn’t materialize fast enough, it was engineered. Situations were fostered that would push participants’ buttons. Bullies and boors were granted pop-culture stardom. Fame and wealth were doled out in exchange for abusive behavior. The loud, the stupid, the obnoxious garnered more attention, more rewards, than the quiet, the thoughtful, the kind.
The trolls from thread #1 watched the activities of thread #2. They were lured by the accolades. They felt empowered. A culture of rudeness and cruelty for entertainment’s sake asked…no…DEMANDED…that extremes be exhibited, loudly and often. But, poor trolls, most of them had no outlet that would showcase their newfound aggression, until…
…the third thread, it could be argued, was a matter of time, circumstance, and culture intersecting.
The United States Presidential election.
A segment of the population watched in horror as the troll culture emerged into full visibility. Ugliness was condoned, substantiated, lauded, applauded.
News media reports that, no matter who wins, this troll-fest will have presaged the least popular President in history.
It’s unsettling how many Americans look traumatized, shocked…are shaking their heads and asking ‘How did this happen? How did we get here?’
It’s as if a puppet master holding the strings of a nation has gone mad. Yet the puppet master remains hidden. All any of us average citizens know is that next week the threads come together, and the highest office in our country will be draped in bunting of ugly cloth, the weaving of which we don’t understand.
It will look like the shroud a troll should wear…
Image: ‘Trolls’ by Brian Froud
Ebony
She follows me,
a slinking, silent presence filled with expectation.
Her coat is dusty.
She’s been rolling in dead leaves,
rubbing her skin against pavement and stems.
She itches;
a pleasure that will turn to torment with age.
A black ghost, a shadow.
I offer food, water, play, affection.
Green-flame eyes bore into mine.
Stupid human not to understand.
They are everywhere.
She is near the end of her life
and her world is thick with spirits
I can’t see.
Yet.
The Stupidity of Terrorism
I awoke to the headlines like the rest of the world.
Another terrorist attack.
Another hostage situation.
Another bevy of sociopaths masquerading under the guise of religious piety.
Poor Bangladesh.
But this time I read deeper. I looked at Facebook pages of some of the victims. I read through as many eye-witness accounts of survivors as I could find. I spent a little time, though not as much as such an atrocity deserves. At least, not if one wishes to honor the victims. As for the instigators, they are less than nothing in my estimation. They deserve only contempt.
Because they’re stupid.
Yes, it is possible to terrorize individuals, but this whole campaign started out as a quest to terrorize the entire world. The goal was to make the planet cower and quake in submission.
You fucking morons. Haven’t you realized yet that the terror of people is not the same as the terror of countries?
Are you so dumb that you haven’t yet seen the equation? Well, let me spell it out for you. Every time you run shrieking Allah and firing guns and blowing yourselves up, it’s like stinging a very large grizzly bear. The bulk of the animal will survive. Not only that, it will exhibit extreme fury. It will turn on what stung it, and rend it.
Terror x 50 = Rage x Billions
Terrorists are short-sighted sadists. This time around they took pleasure in torturing their hostages by requiring they recite from the Koran. If you couldn’t do it, you were killed. That’s a very particular kind of sick cruelty. Very inefficient. Very risky. It proves nothing other than these sociopaths wished to spend their last moments of life engaged in misguided brutality.
And they’re too dim-witted to realize that, in the bigger picture, their antics produce anger, not fear.
Because the rest of the world knows that each life, each spirit, is a gift. Each murder is the theft of potential.
This is not a Christian concept. It’s a human one.
It’s easy to grasp, unless you’re mind-numbingly stupid. You know…
…like a terrorist.
For Fatherless Girls on Father’s Day
As you recall times shared with family and father,
some of us look back on a singular lack.
I remember hearing ‘Girls don’t need fathers as much as boys do.’
Emphatically and thoroughly not true.
The place where a father might have been is empty and dark.
Less than grief, but more than loss, a separate chamber in the heart.
We’re girls who learn men from the outside first,
slaking a congenital thirst.
We grow up strong, we make up the lack,
But there’s something that we never get back:
the memories others celebrate today,
fathers and daughters along the way.
We’re grown women who have learned our way,
but the father-shaped abyss echoes today.
Cat Jenkins 
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