2024 and All That

For a couple of brief, shining moments, it looked as if Kamala Harris would make history by being elected the first female President of the United States.  It turns out that the woman who ends up achieving that distinction hasn't been born yet.  Neither have her parents.

On the other hand, Mexico elected its first female president, and Claudia Sheinbaum is also Jewish and a climate scientist.  But north of the Rio Grande, being a woman, a Jew, or a climate scientist - not two or all of the above, just one of the above - is a liability for one's presidential ambitions, and for climate scientists that goes double.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter just died, and even though he was a hundred years old, I'm still bummed over it.  Not only was he a good and decent man, he voted for Harris hoping to see history be made and came up short.  I mean, he literally lived to be a hundred, and even he didn't see a woman get elected President!

He didn't see high-speed rail in America, either.

Back in 2022, I said I was giving up on causes or social involvement, as well as personal fulfillment.  Going forward, I am giving up on America completely.  I don't even want to acknowledge my neighbors.  As I said, I don't have to leave America; America left me.  True, I appear to finally be closing in on one long-frustrated goal - traveling abroad - but I won't believe it until my plane touches down on foreign soil.  And given how things look with the new old administration coming in, I wouldn't be surprised if the executive branch does issue a crackdown on Republikflucht.

Bearing all that in mind . . . I am not wishing anyone a happy new year.  Not now, not next year, not until New Year's Ever 2028 - and maybe not even then, if Peter Thiel's puppet gets elected to succeed POTUS #47.  There will be no happiness in These States or just about anywhere else in the world for the next four years.  I can't wish anyone a happy new year; I have no heart to be deceitful.  

And going into these next four years, don't expect to see me at Independence Day parades or cookouts or any other patriotic leisure activities, because not only am I timing my trip to Europe this coming summer to ensure that I'll be out of the country on July 4, I'm going to plan three more foreign trips at the same time of the year for the rest of this coming presidential term.

I'm not even celebrating New Year's Eve tonight.  No watching the ball drop, no countdown, no chips and carbonated cider . . . nothing.  I'm just going to do a few things around the house tonight, read for awhile, maybe listen to a CD, and go to bed.  That's it.  That's all.  Besides, I saw the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (which was excellent) earlier today, so I've had my fun.

Good luck in 2025, people.  You're going to need it.

Happy Fourth? Really?

I'm not feeling very patriotic this year.

In the past two years and change, America has proven itself to be a nation virtually unworthy of celebrating, since, thanks to COVID, it's proven to be a nation that's unable to tend to the well-being of its citizens and, thanks to Supreme Court rulings overruling legal abortion, gun-control laws, and environmental standards,  a nation that doesn't care about that inability.  And the January 6 insurrection underlined and put an exclamation point on that inconvenient truth.

There's an Independence Day parade near where I live happening today, and I'll probably go more out of curiosity than anything else; it's the first parade in this nearby town since 2019 thanks to COVID, and I'm wondering if there'll be new participants in the parade or the same old marching bands and floats that I've seen numerous times before in the past decade.  But patriotism?  I gave up on patriotism, actually, because there were too many scoundrels seeking refuge there.

My British ladyfriend Therisa, who famously performed as a ballerina statue mime in New York's Central Park before COVID hit, has endured the stupidity of her adopted homeland for twenty-two years.  She got through eight years of George Walker Bush's Presidency, threatened to leave the country if Sarah Palin became not President but Vice President, suffered the humiliation of performing at an event attended by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, watched the Tea Party take over Congress, saw "that fuckhead" (as she calls him) Donald Trump win the White House, and probably watched the January 6 insurrection unfold along with everyone else.  But the aftermath of 1/6, the rise in violent acts in These States, and the growing power of the far-right Supreme Court finally broke her resolve.  She and her American husband - and their three-year-old daughter - are packing up and pulling out.  They're planning to move to the south of Wales, where they don't have to worry about their daughter getting shot at school and where they also know their daughter will come out of the British school system smarter than if they had sent her to public school in the Big Apple.  I'm wondering how I can escape the United States without having to marry a British woman (though I do understand that Kate Beckinsale is single), and I now fantasize about living in a country where I can have free health care, unadulterated food, and the ability to purchase the Volkswagen of my choice (like a base Golf or a Polo).      

But for now, I'm one of the millions of Americans who want to get out but can't escape.  And I'm at a disadvantage due to the fact that I've never traveled outside North America ever.

The literary scholar Paul Fussell once said that July 4 was the one day that the United States should only receive praise.  I had once said that September 11 is the one day that the United States should only receive sympathy.  In 2022, I'm not so sure the U.S. is worthy of receiving either.