THE ENEMY WITHIN

 

How can it be so close? That question is on the mind of so many people I know, and yet no one has a good answer.

There’s no logical, rational way that the Orange One can win. If he actually does, however, it will destroy my entire world view, one that’s always been based on logical reasoning and rational thought.

Harris and her people have, after all, conducted a pitch-perfect campaign. She’s doing everything exactly right. Saying all the right things, going all the right places. Her campaign’s timing and momentum are perfect. She has all the bi-partisan support, and all the money, that she could ever hope for.

Meanwhile, there’s dementia-addled Trump – buffoon, ignoramus, pathological liar, conman, rapist, malignant narcissist, and all-around despicable human being – blathering nonsense. But wait, there’s more, say his former generals: he’s fascist to his core, incompetent, a grave threat to our democracy.

Every day he displays for all to see his deepening lunacy. His rambling trains-of-thought are so constant that he had to give them a brand – “the weave” – to try to explain away his pathology. He can’t speak for five minutes without veering into incoherence and fantasy.

And every day I ask myself again, how can it be so close? How can nearly half of all the people I see around me – driving down the freeway, pushing shopping carts in Walmart, going to football games – how can nearly half of those normal-appearing people want this lunatic to be in charge?

There are all his well-publicized issues to fear: reproductive rights, immigrant roundups, Project 2025, tariffs, abandoning Ukraine, and on and on. Not appreciated are the less-visible administrative actions that will wreck havoc on progress of the Biden-Harris administration on environmental regulations, climate change, Native American rights, and protections of natural resources, marine sanctuaries, and wilderness.

As bad as Trump is, he surrounds himself with evil, nutty people who are capable of implementing his moronic agenda. People like the Pillow Guy, Stephen Miller, Corey Lewandowski, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn.

Does the man actually believe his fantasies and lies? Once a pronouncement passes his golden lips, does that make it true? At least to him? A genuinely new non-fact-based reality for him and his acolytes? He won the 2020 election. January 6 was about peace and love. He left in a peaceful transition of power. In Ohio, Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs. In Colorado, Venezuelan gangs are out of control. Does he really, deep down, believe that bullshit?

I used to think it was all a con, that he was as phony as his fake university, watches, and coins. Lately though, as we all watch his mental deterioration before our eyes, I’m not so sure. Like a dealer getting high on his own product, it’s possible that his brain is so far gone that he believes his own con.

I have distant friends and relatives who, I’m pretty sure, will be voting for this asshole. I’ve heard all the justifications from such naifs, and it’s all balderdash. How can any issue – taxes, abortion, immigration – take precedence over the clear and present danger to our democracy that he presents? How can people explain away the warnings from Dick Cheney, Mark Milley, Mike Pence, and all those other Republicans who worked for Trump and know him best?

Of course I’m voting for Harris. For me, it’s not that complicated. She’s brilliant. And she’s not Trump. That’s enough.

We’re less than three weeks from the climax of this crazy story. Trump’s going to lose, and I predict it won’t be as close as the polls now suggest. Of course, that won’t be the end of it, since there will be myriad challenges and charges of voter fraud and cheating. But like the last time, he will lose. Then we’ll see if President Harris and Vice President Walz can deliver on their promise to turn the fucking page.

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Wayne’s Blog – Index

 

AN ETHICAL DILEMMA

Did I cross an ethical line when I bought a ladder yesterday at Jerry’s Home Improvement Center? Will my new stepladder have bad karma?

I figure, though, that even if it does, it couldn’t be worse than my old one, with its two paint-splattered steps and top, that it replaced. A year or so ago, I backed over it, then hammered out the legs to a usable state. I could live with that, I suppose, but the last straw for that ladder was Saturday afternoon.

I was standing on top of it, reaching up the far side of the house with my DeWalt screw gun, in order to replace a disintegrating tarp that covers scrap wood and stuff that I keep around. You know. Just in case. Our privacy fence on the property line there is real close to the house, handy for hanging my aluminum extension ladder.

All was going well until one foot of my little stepladder poked down into the dirt and then deep into a mole tunnel. Of course, I should have expected it and wasn’t even particularly surprised when the ladder collapsed and I landed in a heap, atop the two metal rat traps I’d brought to set under the new tarp.

The scrap wood had been covered with rat turds. As I was first inspecting things, one had shot by me, two feet from my nose. I’ve been trying to catch her for months. Tried everything. Bacon grease, salmon eggs, chicken skin, combos with sunflower seeds. Now, I’ve caught and executed lots of rats here in the past, but this one is special. Too smart to catch. I even set up a trail cam to watch her come and go during the night from our back-deck water fountain.

The reason I think it’s a “she” is that there had been a whole family. They had learned to cross, like furry trapeze artists, the wire to reach an especially inviting sunflower seed feeder. One per night for about a week, I popped the rat youngsters with a pellet gun from our second-floor deck. The young ones never learned, but that’s when I think Mama Rat got smart and now is the one I’m dealing with.

Hopefully, the live traps are too small for the visiting skunks, opossum, and neighborhood cats that also come to drink. When I catch chipmunks by accident, I always let them go. Although it’s not the point of this story, there’s another moral dilemma involved here.

Last month, one of those cute little chipmunks that are so fun to watch scurrying around, one of those innocent-looking cartoonish critters, cost me $850. The actual pre-car insurance-payout cost was $2,150. The little bastard had found a route into the cabin of my Honda Pilot, that parks in the driveway near our house. Made itself quite a cozy home. I pulled out a bucket of shredded insulation. Dealer had to replace the blower motor and a bunch of other expensive stuff.

No rat ever cost me like that. But I kill the rats and feed the chipmunks. I think it makes sense, but…

Anyway, it’s not a total surprise that our rat is so finicky and hard to trap. Our place is a fast-food bonanza for critters. Ten or so feeders with sunflower seeds. Chicken food scattered around in their pen. Water. Cover. What’s not to like?

Deer cruise through. A family of turkeys. One week, a young bear. I keep a bird list taped to the guest bathroom mirror of the 64 species of birds we’ve seen or heard on or from our little postage-stamp of a property – not to brag but to showcase how Nature is all around us.

Including underground moles. I’ve tried everything. Killer traps, baits, poisons. The only thing that works is flooding their tunnels with a garden hose for a few minutes. Eventually they either drown or go away after a few days of that. But here along the hidden side of the house, I don’t bother. What harm could they do?

That question didn't cross my mind as I crashed to the ground. On my way down, I knocked the extension ladder off its hooks. It landed squarely on my head.

I untangled myself from the two ladders and checked things out. Nothing hurt, not even my pride, since my wife was inside the house. She must have heard the crash, but I guess she’s gotten used to such surprises. I wondered if I yelled (or screamed) loud enough, whether she would hear me.

That was it for my old, tired stepladder. I shopped online for a replacement, but ended up at Jerry’s in Eugene, since I had a $50 gift card that would cover it -- $49.97, to be exact. The card was from our real estate agent, who sold some family property for us last spring, and I’d been carrying it around since then.

I pushed my shopping cart across the store to the ladders, found what I was looking for, and put it in my cart. As I started to leave, I noticed a red price tag on the lowest shelf. “Sale Price. Marked Down. $39.97.”

All right!

But at checkout, I looked at my receipt and had been charged the full price. I explained to the clerk, but she could find no indication that the ladder was on sale. I said, “You wanna walk over there?” So that’s what we did. She looked at the sale tag, wrote down some numbers, and we started back to the register.

She was a couple of steps ahead of me, when I looked closer at the price tag on the shelf. In the fine print, it read, “Sale ends, Oct. 4.” This was Oct. 7.

Hmmm.

I said nothing and took my $10 refund.

Was that wrong?

As for my new stepladder’s karma, is there such a thing as pre-karmic justice? Delivered by a mole, nonetheless? In any event, I’m going to be extra careful when using my new stepladder.

 

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Wayne’s Blog – Index

REFLECTIONS ON MY 60th HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

I'm going to miss my high school reunion next weekend. Sixty years. But I’m in Oregon, and it’s in Michigan, and that’s 2,400 miles away.

It’s forced me, nevertheless, to contemplate my status in life as an old fart.

It’s not that I have a lot of friends from back then that I’ve been missing. Most of the few I had are dead, scattered to the winds, or gone nutso. Still, it would have been a surreal experience to reconnect with names from what seems like a lifetime ago (because it was).

That lost world of high school, with the angst and insecurities of youth, is as unrecognizable to me as the grinning faces in the yellowing pages of my senior yearbook, full of hand-written “best wishes” notes scrawled by fellow grads. “To a swell guy with a wonderful personality” was a prevailing theme. Apparently, I was a “nice guy” back then. Another: “possibly the smartest fellow I’ve ever met.” Faint praise, really, since there were only 96 in our graduating class.

I did go to our 10^th reunion, back in 1974, when none of us had died yet (to the best of my recollection). I just remember one thing from the evening (aside from an embarassing smugness I carried at that age). I turned down a chance to purchase a gospel LP record album being hawked by my former high school sweetheart, at a card table along the gymnasium wall. How is it that I can still remember my exact words to her – “Sorry, Karen, but I just wouldn’t listen to it.” – after all these years? Guilt? Perhaps, since she’s now one of the dead ones.

I also missed our 25^th reunion. I then was living in Bullhead City, Arizona, running a land development company owned by a friend, building subdivisions in the desert. The night of the reunion, we were in Las Vegas, having dinner at a lovely little restaurant, Café Michel. I called the reunion from a pay phone in the lobby, and chatted awkwardly with a string of forgotten classmates, ending with that now-dead old girlfriend.

I only stayed in touch with a couple of those long-ago friends over the years. One went off the deep end, and I’ve not heard from him since we lived in Ann Arbor in the 1990s, thank goodness. Another has made it his mission on Facebook to save my soul for Jesus. So far, no luck. Another died back in 2010, when I wrote a blog at the time, “Last Man Standing”:

One by one … we lose our friends. Some get snatched for no apparent reason. Others check out with a chart full of bad habits. After a while you have to ask yourself: Why me? How did I survive all the accidents, booze, close calls, drugs, zealotries. You could fill an alphabet's list with all you’ve dodged. Why me? Was it healthy living? Good genes? Luck? Maybe it was God. I’ve always had people who said they were praying for me. Although that’s not something I do for myself, it couldn’t hurt. Good vibes can never hurt.

Such mysteries, these lives we pass through. One day I'm driving my parents' green, '54 Ford down Dort Highway on the outskirts of Flint, cruising McDonald's, trying to be cool, looking for directions for life. And now here today, sitting on my back porch in Oregon sunshine, sixty years later. 

It turns out that old age is a gift; with it, I’ve discovered an exaggerated appreciation for life, and everything and everyone in it. So I don’t know. If we lived closer to Michigan, might I be headed with my wife (the love of my life) for that reunion in Flint next weekend? Maybe. It’s not like my calendar is chockfull these days.

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THE STATE OF WAYNE

Am I one of the luckiest people ever to have lived? It sure seems that way.

For starters, what better time in all of human existence to be alive? We have Google! Entire supermarket aisles dedicated just to breakfast cereal. An app on my iPhone listens, and then identifies any bird song. We can get in our cars and drive anywhere our hearts desire, while an onboard robot gives us directions.

And personally, I hit the cosmic jackpot: American, white, male. Intelligent. Healthy. Here I am, nearly 78 years old, and still going strong. Supported by a brilliant, beautiful woman, my wife and best friend for 33 years, who is hitting the apex of her career, providing us with a life of ease. We’ve a beautiful house and awesome flower gardens. Family and friends are nearby, or connected via Facebook.

That’s why, most every day, I ask myself, “Wayne, how did you get so fucking lucky?” Of all the humans ever to have lived, for countless generations over millions of years, why me? Why here? Why now? Why am I who I am, where I am, when I am?

Every one of the billions of past souls, each of our forgotten ancestors, had a story, their brief moment on Earth, with all the hopes and dreams, loves and losses, that all of us experience. And now, this is my moment.

Compared with any previous generation, anywhere, mine is blessed beyond measure. Absent are the past’s (and, still, much of the rest of the world’s) plagues, fleas and lice, appalling hygiene, endless warfare, mysterious diseases, hunger, all manner of bigotry, and widespread slavery.

…Worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Thomas Hobbes, 1651)

Having spent my career in service of Mother Earth, I consider this a special era of history, and count my time in it as a privilege. Humankind’s worst, sordid ravages of Nature (so far) are in our past. Healing is underway – in less polluted rivers, cleaner air, better land and forest management, wildlife conservation. Environmental stewardship is a real thing. I can enjoy protected wilderness, wildlife refuges, and parks all over the country.

I’m painfully aware that bad change is coming to our environmental idyll. I’ll not live to see the modern carnage humans are visiting on Earth; the worst of the looming crises from climate change will be for other generations to suffer. My grandkids will grow old in a far different world, a place we can’t even imagine.

And who can say what the lunacy of our fractured politics will morph into. At least there’s this silver lining: Cheeto Benito has produced the most entertaining political theater since Watergate. As much as I hate it, I love it.

It’s a great time to be alive. I still can enjoy Earth’s staggering biodiversity – bees, bristlecone pines, polar bears, and 10,000 kinds of birds. I can drive my carbon-spewing SUV, like there’s no tomorrow. I can fill my life with toys and stuff from all over the world: organic berries from Peru, wine from Australia, salmon from Alaska. I bought two galvanized steel fence posts at Home Depot the other day, that were made in Vietnam!

Speaking of… For my generation, the Vietnam War was the apocalyptic crisis of youth. I managed (literally) to dodge it. Not like guys just like me, then, and in every other generation, who lived, suffered, were maimed, and died in world wars, civil wars, colonial wars, genocidal wars. It’s the tragedy of humankind that continues this very minute, in other places. Yet here I am, somehow having avoided it. Was that just dumb luck?

Much, if not most, of our so-called “luck” in life is simple genetics. Smart or dumb,  tall or short, hairy or bald (or both), white or red – nothing we can control. But do genetics dictate everything, all the daily decisions that we make? Regular exercise? Who we marry? Flossing? Diet? Going along with immoral wars? How much do we make our own “luck” in life?

All I can say is that I must have done something right. It got me here, and that’s a damned good place.

Perhaps this paean to the state of Wayne sounds smug and egoistic. The SNL Church Lady keeps echoing in my brain: “Well isn’t that special?!?” But my life is special. I look around and realize that, while every person is special in their own way, most aren’t so lucky as me. A trip to Walmart always dispels any doubt.

Nevertheless, is my self-satisfaction merely an illusion? Perhaps my grandkids will look back, when they’re old like me, and believe their time on Earth was the best ever. That their Papa was way too short-sighted, ignorant, and provincial. I hope so. Is it possible they’ll find that future advances in science and medicine to be worth the ecological catastrophe they’ll inherit? Will AI and technology save them? Is it possible that the Earth will be a better place in the future? After all, who, a generation ago, could have predicted Amazon and TikTok?

But this is my happy story and I’m sticking with it. I’m blessed with a wonderful family, and a kitty who just lives for love. I can still do the outdoorsy things I love – walking, biking, gardening, Grand Canyon rafting, fishing, photography – and enjoy Oregon’s extraordinary wine and weed. And as if all that wasn’t enough, I’m married to the finest chef and epicure I’ve ever known.

Being old and retired gives me appropriate perspective to appreciate such good fortune. I’m living in the place I searched and strove for my entire life, and now am savoring every moment. At this age, mortality is a constant companion. For as Robert Frost wrote: “Nothing gold can last.” But that will be a story for another day.

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I'M WITH THE STUDENTS

 

Since the Hamas massacre on October 7, I’ve been flummoxed about what to think about the Gaza War. And, most recently, about growing campus protests. But after Israel has killed 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, it’s gotten too much to ignore.

I called a Jewish friend yesterday, and asked how he felt about the student demonstrations over the Gaza War. “I’m completely with the students,” Rick replied immediately.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. Before he could continue, I interrupted and asked him to repeat it. After all, Rick is serious about his cultural identity; his personal heritage includes Zionism.

As he expounded to me his criticism of Israel’s handling of the war, using words like “genocide” and “mass starvation,” I felt a surprising surge of relief. You’re not crazy, Wayne, I told myself. Until that moment, I had been afraid to admit what I knew to be simple truth: What Israel is doing is wrong; what the protesters are doing is right.

As a news junkie, I’ve listened to the criticisms of the students and college presidents. At first, I was sympathetic with broadsides that the universities were waffling about anti-Semitism on campuses. Yet, the more closely I watched, the more familiar the protests felt. These were the same kind of naïve, anti-war chants I’d shared during the Vietnam War protests of the Sixties. (Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?) Like today’s pro-Palestine students and Arab-American protesters, we didn’t understand the complexities of international politics. We were told we didn’t respect the threat – then of Communism, now of Hamas. It’s not that we were stupid; we were young. The mainstream media and most of the public saw us as hippie freaks, Commie peaceniks; now, all protesters are simplistically branded as anti-Semites.

The most important lesson from those long-ago anti-war protests: we were right. Eventually, Walter Cronkite agreed. LBJ agreed. The public agreed. And finally, that awful war ended.

Today, like then, the future for peace appears hopeless. Unspeakable humanitarian horrors are being rained down on Palestinians, not just by Israel’s military, but by supporters of Jewish apartheid, particularly on the West Bank. Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu, is revving up his war machine to attack Rafah, in southern Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians are cowering and starving. He has no credible plan to protect civilians, says the U.S. Maybe Netanyahu’s pulling a bluff on the world to further his own agenda; we’ll see.

As another Jewish friend, Peter, explained to me in rational detail about Gaza and the student protests, it’s complicated. It is certainly that, and I don’t claim to know answers to the centuries-old hatreds and religious bigotries in the Middle East. Palestinian extremists are evil. Hamas’ October 7 atrocities, killing 1,269 and kidnaping 240 hostages, was evil.

But Israel’s response: 35,000 dead, 78,000 wounded, thousands of Arab families destroyed, hospitals and water supplies bombed, incalculable agonies of Palestinian innocents, and no end in sight. Where does that fit with the humanistic values of Judaism? It’s insane.

As the student protests continue and the mountain of civilian casualties in Gaza grows, I’ll try to keep an open mind and learn more. I know I can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be Jewish in this world where anti-Semitism is rife. (Hell, my paternity is German – fortunately, they were Mennonite pacifists so my genetic guilt is minimal. But still…)

Meanwhile, protests and crackdowns on demonstrations promise to get more violent. Texas’ governor (and others) is ready to send in the National Guard. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe that’s because he was only twelve years old during the Kent State University shootings of student protesters by the Ohio National Guard back in 1970. Or maybe it’s because, like a lot of the self-righteous Republican critics of the protests, he’s just a fascistic asshole.

There are rational solutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict (see “Israel: The Way Out,” by David Shulman, The New York Review, May 9, 2024). Shulman (Professor Emeritus at Hebrew University of Jerusalem), though not optimistic for early peace, explains that the only way for Israel to survive as a state in coming decades “…is for Israel to make a decent peace with those who share the land with us.”

Those crazy campus protesters may not know everything, and their tactics may be naïve, even counter-productive in the short-term. But the immediate need for peace in Gaza is one thing they do understand. I’m with the students.

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