Back in ’64, there was a weekly show hosted by David Frost that was pretty cool. It was called “That was the week that was” with a hip girl singer singing the theme song every week at the beginning. It was funny and clever and .. well, needless to say, it didn’t last. The generation wasn’t ready to change yet.

But now I take that phrase and apply it to this week. Why? Monday – Trump meets with the Dems and the Rep boys to .. to what? The Dems wanna say they tried? Trump will goad Schumer into a tantrum, and say, “They wanted talk – they got it. Now they will do what they have to do.” Yes. LIkely.

Also, today Kirsten returns to work at a job she’ll likely despise, but it might help keep things going for a little while anyway. Does it really matter? Probably not. Why do I say that?

Tomorrow the Hegseth/Goering SecWar tells the assembled military leaders that they are now working for Trump, forget the Constitution. That’s so yesterday. And how will they react? Are they prepared for this turn of events? Nope. Some will laugh nervously. Some will sigh, some will nod. But the damage will be done. They’re his now. Dispatched to Oregon to quell those non-existent riots. Well, not non-existent – just old, resurrected by the little guy that puts videos together for Fox news looking for a visual. Oh my…won’t be he proud?

Then Wednesday the government – what’s left of it – shuts down, likely for a very, very long time. Will we get our checks? If not, that cuts our income by 40%. Can we survive? Can those folk that got DOGE’d? And when the rest deemed “non-essential” get fired – what will they do?

It’s time. For what, you ask? To acknowledge that it isn’t gonna get better. We’re not gonna just slide through this term like we did last time. We’re talking plastic deformation here, folks. This won’t end well. Yes it will end, at some point, but there won’t be very much left.

So what should we do to prepare? Stop talking. Start planning. Garden. Barricades. Guns? I’m not there yet, but I’m gettin’ there. Who will save us? Nope. This has been a very long time coming, and it will be oh so painful – likely for the rest of my and maybe your time here on earth. Can we feel better for having anticipated it, called it as we saw it, warned everyone to no avail? Nah. Remember the women in Berlin in June of ’45. Did anybody swoop in to save them? Nope. They learned to cope. So will we.

Charlie Warzel writes for The Atlantic and also has a newsletter called Galaxy Brain about technology, media, big ideas, his words, not mine from his brief bio at the end of the latest article. It’s entitled, “Something is Very Wrong Online”, talking about the media and violence. You know what this is about: the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Another Charlie. Charlie Brown. Charlie Rose. Charlie the North Vietnamese soldier. So many Charlies.

But the bad guy this time is called Tyler, a 22 year old from a little town in Utah. Warzel repeats the things that have been said so far, being careful not to “make up stories” about the kid or his family or dig too deeply into his “story” to be fabulous – as in a fable. But I feel no compunction to hesitate. Charlie has national attention; I just write this talkin’ to myself, mostly.

So Tyler the 22 year old. I wrote a similar profile to this one about Edward Snowden, the blabbermouth who’s in Russia now doing God knows what. The leaker of leakers, who started a mini-trend of leaking that led to all kinds of weird stuff – Chelsea Manning? Anyway, the profile feels similar. Tyler’s a really smart guy; aced his ACTs and went to college on scholarship. Bombed out after a semester. What happened there? Here’s the story I make up.

He comes from a “Good Family”, so he led a pretty sheltered life, outdoorsy and fairly happy. He’s the oldest son, but I suspect he didn’t get along very well with his dad – much closer to his mom. Maybe Dad was jealous of how smart his son is – was. Maybe son was having trouble adjusting to puberty. Anyway, he leaves home at 18, goes off to college and now the guardrails are off. He’s responsible for himself now – no mom around to make sure he got up in the morning. So maybe he was staying up all night, playing a virtual character in video games that got him hooked. Too tired to go to class in the morning, but no big deal. In high school, he could ace the test even if he skipped class, which I suspect he had a habit of doing back then. Starting to get the image that Charlie W was hesitant to portray – or lacked the insight to see?

So the conquering hero returns home – three and a half years ago – and what has he been doing since then? Staying up all night, playing a darker virtual character in Helldivers 2 (from Charlie W too). No job. Probably on medication for depression. When his dad confronted him about “looking like the guy in the picture” (?), he said he’d rather kill himself than turn himself in. So what does dad do? Get a minister who is somehow affiliated with the police department to let the totally incompetent FBI know. Who gets to announce that they got the kid? Trump. Jesus. Am I dreaming all this?

Yes, I think I sort of am. The blur between virtual and whatever ‘real’ is now is complete. There’s a whole cadre of Tylers out there. They aren’t necessarily political – oh, they may say mean things about guys like Kirk, but there’s no substance to it. No – they are just “playing the game”. Crikey, even the video of him slipping off the roof, jumping onto the ground and running away looked like a character in a video game. No wonder kids are so confused these days!

Charlie W writes that these Tylers are part of “fandoms – a hybrid threat network of disaffected people that can include Columbine obsessives, neo-Nazis, child groomers and trolls. They perform for one another through acts of violence and cheer their community on to commit murder.” Well, there you have it. To commit murder. Tyler finds out a notable person is coming to a town near him, and, voila…picks up his dad’s hunting rifle – which probably hasn’t been fired in ten years – still in the bag – and carries it up the steps to the roof with a half baked idea about doing something. He hates himself because he’s afraid of dying, but thinks he’ll just go up there and see how it feels, and then he looks and sees he has a perfect shot at the guy, and maybe the bulletproof vest will let the bullet bounce off, and so he’ll just be charged with attempted, not murder, and not die in a hail of bullets like that little weasel in Butler – but then things happened really fast and then not well. So he runs into the woods, and manages, in his panic, to drop the gun. Drop the gun. Some assassin.

Here’s the thing. Charlie W has no solutions to this problem. Just a definition of the problem. Symptoms, not the disease. Characteristics of these archetypes. Quotes from angry people ostensibly in charge at the government. Not in any way helpful.

What’s my solution? I’m writing it in QUALMS, so I won’t bore you with a rehash of it here. But I’ll say what I’ve been saying for a very long time. The collapse is coming. But there will be a Reconvening. That’s all I know. And I know it with all my heart, mind and soul. There’s no preparing for it, any more than the women left in Berlin in ’45 could prepare for the onslaught of the very angry Russian army. We’re in trouble and we know it. But we are so constrained by isolation, helplessness and fear that we just go through the days like characters in a video game of our own creation. Ay, Horatio, there’s the rub.

Oh – guess I’m back. Been a while, but QUALMS kept me busy. It’ll be out by Thanksgiving.

I woke up at 5:25 am this morning with an image of a guy in a park ranger suit and hat in my head. He must have had some kind of identification on, because I knew he was one of those guides from the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Recall the Arizona sank after being attacked by Japanese Zero airplanes on December 7th, 1941. One thousand, one hundred seventy seven men died on the Arizona, including twenty three sets of brothers. Imagine the visit those moms got a few days later.

But now it’s 5:36 am. I’m sitting at the keyboard, typing this while I wait for my coffee to finish brewing. I’m thinking about the current situation in this country. It’s dire. But what’s that to do with my snatch of a dream about a park guy from the Arizona?

It’s this: JAPAN HAD NO LOGICAL WAY TO WIN A WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES ON DECEMBER 8TH, 1941. But they attacked anyway. They’d “made up their mind and counted to three” to quote Penny Wharvey McGill from “Oh Brother Where Art Thou.” Let’s discuss this (The Japanese attack, not Holly Hunter’s character).

It’s easy to look back from the position of eighty four years later and say the Japanese had no way to win a war with the United States. Things looked quite dire in December of ’41. The adage “go big or go home” was adopted in this effort by the Japanese. In addition to Pearl Harbor, they attacked all over the far East, successfully taking real estate from mostly British colonies. Hitler and his cronies were busy in the Mediterranean and against the Russians in that country. For a short time, as I said, things were dire.

Fast forward six months or so to the Japanese attack on Midway. I’m sure we’ve all seen the movie …movies on the topic. It was a huge victory for the American navy, achieved through cleverly breaking Japanese codes and good intuition on the part of a few navy fliers. But here’s my point: that was six months later. The war with Japan didn’t end until just short of four years later, and with the help of dropping two atomic bombs on the country, killing an estimated two hundred ten thousand Japanese men, women and children.

Get to the point, Susan. Okay. Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, knew they couldn’t win. He made the best of the bad hand the Japanese had. They needed oil. They couldn’t carry out their expansionist plans in the far east without it to operate their war machine. All this is settled history – dogma, if you will. But a little digging shows all this started with a cadre of young, radical officers in Japan who orchestrated the attack on Manchuria in China ten years earlier – without orders to do so. But in for a penny … you know the rest. They kept going, and it was MADNESS to think they could succeed. They didn’t. Trump and his cadre of … whatever you want to call them … won’t either.

They are destroying the establishment government. Young people wearing balaclavas are snatching people with brown faces off the street for the sin of helping to write op ed pieces about the other disaster occurring in the Middle East. They are putting alleged bad guys on planes and taking them to notorious prisons in El Salvador, paying their government to keep them dressed in their boxers. Kristi Noem, showing up in front of this gang of guys in tight t-shirt and jeans – and a $50k Rolex (ugh) … makes a commercial for the regime. Jesus H. Christ. And we just sit there in front of our TVs and say nothing?

It’s WWE and The Apprentice all rolled into one. Tacky. Clumsy. Dangerous.

This cannot continue. But it will. And it’s a gonna get worse. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because they’d gotten away with everything they’d done up to that point. The incompetent British in the far east were powerless to stop them. But maybe the Japanese kids in charge thought all of us were incompetent. Just as the Trumpers think all brown people are the enemy. Makes ya just want to shake your head? Hmm.. don’t think that will be enough.

Then there’s poor Little Marco. Swept up in all this. The kid from ex-pat Cuban parents, having to make nice widda Russians. Out way over his skis as Sec of State. Signing off on these snatches and deportations. Poor sucker. What price to lose your soul, Marco? This won’t end well for him – and for us.

Four years after Pearl Harbor, the mainland of Japan was in ruins. Total casualties were estimated at almost three million. Millions of others in the far east were casualties of their folly. And for what? Four years from now, what will this country look like? Will we even have mid-term elections in 2026 that are real? In ’41, Japan was overtaken by the same madness that has overtaken this country at this time. We will pay for it over the next quarter century, becoming the pariah of the world, subjected to cyberattacks that make the last few years look like child’s play. No matter who sits in the Oval Office, the damage will be done. We won’t be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again until after you and I are dead and gone. Our children and grandchildren will suffer mightily. And for what? To bring down the price of eggs. We will get what we deserve. It’s called Karma. We knew what he was when we picked him up. But pick him up we did, with half the country voting for him. John Adams said “There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” We have the pill bottle open and we’re swallowing one pill at a time.

Title: Quantum Mechanics, The Multiverse and The Afterlife:

Short Title: QUALM (catchy, huh?)

Why?

Because this is what interests me.

What about these three things is of interest to you?

I think they are all connected

How so?

Things work differently at the quantum level. The multiverse is just a theory, but there may be a connection between it and what certain sensitive individuals can feel – the ‘other side’

So you think people who talk to dead people – like yourself – are simply tuning into the Multiverse?

Yes

What proof do you have that this is so?

I have no proof. If there was proof, why write about it? I want to explore it. I want to take the reader on the journey with me. So I intend it to be comedic.

What’s funny about Quantum Mechanics? And really, what’s funny about the afterlife? Being dead ain’t funny.

Really? Hmm..The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Topper. Ghostbusters. Beetlejuice. Casper. Well, maybe not Casper. The kid’s cartoon was better than the movie. But you get the idea. The comedy comes from seeing but not believing. Or being believed. With my book, the comedy will likely come from the confusion that surrounds these three things.

So OK. Have you got an outline for this thing yet?

Nope. Do I need one this time?

You always need one.

I’m not sure about that. How can I do an outline about things I haven’t learned yet?

Good point. OK. Broad outline..section titles…bread crumbs to follow so you don’t get lost in the weeds?

That makes sense. OK – I’ll work on that.

Good. So get started.

OK. Should I do the research first – read the books and then summarize them?

Nope. General outline first.

I’ll do that. Thanks, buddy.

You’re welcome. We’re always together now.

Indeed we are.

It’s 2:25 AM, and my brain has been in overdrive mode for at least an hour. Clearly it’s tapped into the ‘other’ dimension, the one that wades through all the chaff to find the wheat, metaphorically speaking. I’m talkin’ big scale here. Big.

Let’s start with the fundamentals. Democracy is dying – worldwide. Who killed it? Everybody did their part. The remnants of Communism in China – in particular Deng – made like they were benign and got let into the World Trade Organization. Recall that’s the organization that Trump killed. But four decades of Chinese trade dominance made it clear that Chinese Communism worked where Russian Communism didn’t. So that’s part of it. What else? Who else? We did. Let me ‘splain.

Roll your tape all the way back to 11/22/63. Operation Northwoods was supposed to be a false flag operation that opened the door for the kooks – aka spooks – in the CIA to mount a mission to attack the island of Cuba. Bombastic Fidel drove those boys nuts. But the false flag operation went slightly awry, and ended up killin’ the prez. Oops. They spent lots of treasure covering that big oops up. So what started small got big – government-wide big. Nobody could let the Russians know that the CIA killed the president. It would show how really vulnerable we were, with people at the helm that oughn’t be. Goodness knows, might lead to revolution. So let the lies begin.

Then somebody, somewhere said, “Hey, this is actually kinda easy. And it’s like losing your virginity or using portables. Never mind, won’t explain that one. Losing your virginity. After the first time, the second one is easy. So they used the same methods to kill Robert K and Martin L K. Got away with those too. How? They were united in rationalizing that anything they did was in the name of keeping strong in the face of the nuclear-armed Russians. Kind of like in the face of WMDs with Saddam. Gettin’ the idea? Ironic that little Putin, small KGB Dresden gnome was taking notes for later. More on that later in this post.

So how – or why – did it stop? Was it better leadership that said, “Nah, we ain’t gonna act that way anymore? Hell, no. It was the invention of the iPhone combined with the internet: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Everybody filmed everything and put it out on the web. Now, you’d say that just spawned more conspiracy theories. True, did. But it also shown a light on everything everybody did. It’s Abraham Zapruder on steroids. So it stopped, sorta.

The first alleged assassination on Trump. Heard much about the kid that tried to take him out? Nope, me neither. I think we’re seeing a return of this kind of operation. So we’ve gone from left of center power brokers to right wing nutjobs. Doesn’t that bring you great confidence in the future?

Here’s the thing. Understanding this doesn’t change much of anything. But how will it play out this time? Ironies will abound. Trump is doddering. Probably won’t leave Mar-a-Lago much, as he’s likely paranoid about those same guys that orchestrated the ‘near miss’ not missing next time. Wouldn’t you worry about that if you were him? So somebody – or some bodys – will emerge as the next strong man/men. But it will be pointless. Huh?

One more digression. Let’s turn to the Middle East. Netanyahu. Oops – wait, let’s look at Putin first. He had his day in the assassination game. Learned his lessons well. Got away with all of his too…pretty much. The guy that got caught in London got returned to Russia in the prisoner swap. He’s probably locked in the same cell as Assad. Putin don’t like failures. Biden is so easily duped these days. The German Schroeder was key to that deal..and now he’s out. Starting to see the tide? But Putin got put on the back foot as the Brits say, when Netanyahu and Erdogan got rid of Assad. Not sure that was Bibi’s intent, but it sure was Recip’s – that’s Erdogan of Turkey’s first name, in case you might not remember that. Back to the Middle East. Bibi’s the big assassin on the block now. Taking out most of the opposition and blasting Gaza back to the stone age – where they mostly lived anyway – makes him top dog. Everybody loves him in Israel now. But what happens afterward? Iran is weakened. Israel is small, geographically. Who will ultimately benefit from this? Saudi Arabia. MBS. What does he want? Well, that’s a good question. He had his hand in the assassination game, taking out a reporter for the Washington Post. The issue lived on for a while, but now that Bezos is obeisant (love that alliteration!) to Trump, that won’t be a problem anymore. MBS wants to be in charge of the entire Middle East. No more Iran. And then no more Israel.

So back to the beginning. Democracy was personified by the uber strong United States. The election of one Donald J. Trump will put an end to that illusion. Without the US, Democracy lives in places like Sweden and Australia and the Pitcairn Islands, smallest democracy by population. Remember Pitcairn from Mutiny on the Bounty? But I digress. The end of democracy will be the end of our government and the splitting up of the country. I’ve already written that book – and almost finished with the sequel. But what I never fully understood – about my own writing – was the religious element of it. Quoting from Matthew, then the Koran, and finally the Bhagavad gita. It is no coincidence that Evangelicals are aligned with Trumpism. They expect to put their stamp on what goes on in the future – four years’ worth. But that will be just another brick in the wall (not the one with Mexico) that will be built between the regions of the country. We are heading for a breakup. It’s all in the book.

But what about this sequel – religious overtones? Yep, but new books – the Book of Sabrina, the Book of Julia, Maya as the final victor in the war between good and evil. Yes, the reunification of the country will be an element of this new religion, one based on a matriarchy of sorts. Because it will be oh so clear that patriarchy doesn’t work. Put the ladies in charge, please. There it is. But by the time all that comes to pass, I will be dust next to the pond. But I’ll have the satisfaction of being able to say, “Told ya.”

… Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you

… Every single day
And every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I’ll be watching you

Don’t know about the night he stays, but you know this one. It’s the stalker song! Supposedly some idiots play it at their wedding. Portends that future.

You will likely be bored with my single mindedness, but HCR is as bad as I am as the consequences of this woebegotten election are huge.

This pic sums it up visually.

Oren Cass, a “conservative” think tank head, wrote an OpEd piece in the NYT about the choices Trump must quickly make in the opening days of his administration. Immigration. Cryptocurrency (?). Infrastructure and returning jobs to the US from overseas. He isn’t very encouraging.

Oren points out that presidents have to transition from campaigning to win to governing. They are surrounded by people with agendas. Ref: the West Wing TV series from the 90’s where you saw that on nearly every episode. Oren has a limited amount of confidence that Trump will take his “mandate” and effectively do the right thing. How naive they are. Who they?

“Conservatives” are just old school Republicans. They don’t understand Trump. He isn’t one of them. In fact, it’s pretty clear he has great disdain for them. He’s a lizard brained sociopath in the beginning stages of dementia. That makes for a vicious loop in his thinking, with the dementia destroying any logical bits left in the cranium, emphasizing the lizard component. Note to Conservatives of the world: HE IS CAPABLE OF JUST ABOUT – NAY..I REWRITE THIS STATEMENT. HE IS CAPABLE OF ANYTHING. ANYTHING.

He’s already begun by taking a swipe at used to be fat and now Ozempic’d Mike Pompeo. He took another one at Nikki Haley, who fully deserved it. Guess she never understood that it ain’t no good to let other people get your kicks for you. Oops..channeling Dylan there for a moment. What I meant to say is she tried to straddle the Trump fence and ended up just looking really venal and shallow. Maybe that’s what she is. Don’t know. I became a Republican to vote for her in the primary. Big mistake. Won’t do that ever again.

Back to the topic at hand. Expect no rationality here, folks. Anything is possible. Anybody is possible, regardless of experience or political persuasion, for his administration. God help us. Oh..one final note. Didn’t see a whisper in that OpEd piece about climate change. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Climate change. It will be the death of many of us. Prepare ye the way of the weather.

I’ll be watching. And talking. And reminding you: you let him in.

Per HCR, voters are waking up to realities that are a day late and a dollar (or twenty) short. Like tariffs increase costs. Undocumented relatives can be deported. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

stupidity, gullibility, naivety. Don’t forget: you let him in.

No, it isn’t the Wall Street crash; it’s two days after the election. I was going to keep posting the upside down American flag, but that image – supposed to mean send help – has been co-opted by Trumpists. So I’ll have to work on a new visual.

Fascination with Fascism. That is where we are. To know something is very bad for the country – and for you as an individual – and to embrace it anyway? What is that? Masochism. Nihilism. Naziism. Lots of isms being thrown around here. I don’t think it’s any of those. It’s gullibility. Stupidity. Naivety. Giving in to our most dangerous instincts to embrace a strong man. Have we seen this picture before?

Oh, no more than a few thousand times before throughout history. But we were supposed to be the land of the free. The home of the brave. Kamala’s concession speech talked about those things. Won’t be hearing much about that anymore. It’ll be interesting to compare and contrast with his inaugural speech. If he can be propped up on the dais to give it.

Reality is, he’s an old and senile man, still trying to win back the love of his daddy. Yuck. Tacky. Worthy of one of those CBS shows that can take any premise and make it cringeworthy. Matlock. Not the old one with Andy – the new one with Kathy. Cringeworthy. The real problem here are the kids surrounding him. Vance. Bannon. Miller. Kids. These aren’t kids. They are co-conspirators who will be the Marc Antony’s that will eventually dispose of him, now that he’s let them in the gates of power. Then they’ll squabble amongst themselves and eventually implode. Can’t wait for all that to happen.

And the good folks in this country let it happen. Wanted it to happen. Wanted to see the train wreck so badly, they voted against their own self interest. You can’t make this stuff up. It seems impossible, yet there it is.

I’ll work on a new logo apropos to the occasion. It will only be needed for two years – ’til the next election when the first leg of the stool to be knocked off will be the House of Representatives. It always turns over in the midterms in a Democracy. We are still that, aren’t we? Only if we hang on. By our fingernails.

Thought I’d leave you with this visual. Seemed appropriate for the occasion.

You invited him in.

Can you hear me? Are you taking any of this seriously? Probably not. This may be one of the last times I post here. If America is heading to oblivion, I will shun the role of chronicler.

it’s up to you and your generation to see this right. But you and all young people may be the ones who ultimately destroy us by voting for the madman. Why? I lost touch with who you are a while ago. Maybe living through the upheaval of life in this country since you were thirteen did it. But I’m old. The impact on me will be mostly psychological. You will live another 70 years dealing with the fallout of your action. I feel sorry for you.

So stop. Think. If you can’t vote for her, don’t vote for anybody. Just vote for the two Amendments and call it done. Ah, youth. Bless your hearts.