this is my country?

[Sorry it's not better edited]


Just about the time I think nothing worse or more egregious can happen, well, of course it does.

Tonight's PBS NewsHour retailed two segments that, alone and more so when linked, made me want to weep or vomit. I am sorry I haven't got the computer skills to suss out the particular segments for easy access, but I can describe them:

First, the tale from Texas of some 250 migrant children, from toddlers to teens, shut in a single room with older children asked to watch after the younger. Many had been separated from their parents and then segregated in ways that might have done the Boers or the Nazis proud. This was my country as it exists today.

Second was an analysis of why, after Iran shot down an American military drone this week, a strike force was launched by the commander in chief of the military, Donald Trump, and only canceled when, in flight to Iranian targets, the president said he could not countenance the collateral death estimate of 150 people ... and so he aborted the mission. This is my country as it exists today.

Spliced into the latter segment was commentary of former vice-president and presidential candidate Joe Biden's refusal to back away from remarks in which he said that as a member of ongress, of course he had worked with those whose segregationist views he disagreed with. Congress is a body that tries to do things for the country it represents. To expect everyone to agree is egregiously stupid. The idea is to either arm-wrestle opponents to your point of view or convince them, no matter what their other leanings.

Why hadn't the president's sensitivities been more clearly in mind when the launching of the strike was ordered? Partly it's because he has no Secretary of Defense. He seems given to getting rid of advisers who simply do not agree with him. He is the sole arbiter ... the sole arbiter ... the sole arbiter.
Allies, if the U.S. has them any more, are in mental disarray. America is in mental disarray. There are no policies...

But 250 kids who are ill clothed, ill-nourished, and ill-medically-attended... this is my country as it exists today ... I am left with nothing but wubba-wubba on my tongue and lips. Will someone please take this man out behind the barn, shoot him in the kneecaps, and throw him into a sty where the pigs can shit all over him?

There is the minor "apostasy" that the Vatican can cite from time to time. But major apostasies spread a wider net ... a human one. It's time to stop.

Colleges and universities and other gatherings where people with good hearts and capped teeth agree with each other can learn from Biden, I think.