Wednesday, August 16

There Is A House Growing Next Door Morning Coffee Muses

It’s hot again, and humid, the air isn’t moving. Even my porch fans aren’t making it more than passably muse-able. The morning skies look just like every morning, mostly blue, mostly clear with a few cloud to the east over the bay.

The neighbor’s new house is growing like a mushroom. Just the potential of a foundation on Sunday, foundation on Monday, walls mostly framed on Tuesday. The soundtrack of my morning… nailguns. And an occasional power saw.

Did you catch the reality show that is our President yesterday? His response to Charlottesville has been eye opening. First it was as much the fault of the dead and injured as it was the neo-Nazis and other alt-right groups. That was the weekend. Then, as if forced, he called out the hate groups. But yesterday, it all came out… it was shared blame, peaceful alt-right and peaceful alt-left with some bad characters on both sides shared the blame.

And then there was the whole bit about his Charlottesville winery. But, let’s all talk about infrastructure. You know, he’s signed another memo… a proclamation… hell, whatever it is he signs that makes him think he’s getting things done. Even when nothing is really happening.

The most telling thing I saw was a comment to the effect that in America in 2017 a woman unskilled by a Nazi and the President couldn’t bring himself to condemn the act by calling out the Nazis. And people of this democracy elected this man…

And then he wanted to equate Robert E. Lee to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Robert E. Lee was the military leader of a failed rebellion, Jefferson and Washington won theirs or we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. The morality of slavery is a settled matter. The fact they all owned slaves is no relevant to the issue of racism in America today. And the history of these statues isn’t a matter of heritage, it’s a matter of a resurgence of racism in the 1920’s and 1930’s, about the same time the antisemitism of the Nazis came to power. You want your heritage, both of these movements fought worldwide battles and lost. Their movements relegated to the dark corners of polite society… Then we have the election of Trump, and the bugs feel they now have the right to come out and play.

No. They don’t. We can’t let them…