Friends,
The end of 2023 is fast approaching. Even though the calendar year is an artificial construct, I’ll be glad to see the last hateful, hurtful, and mournful 365 days go away. Just to give you a taste, my father in-law died on the day before Christmas Eve and his widow fell and hit her head later that evening. We spent Christmas Eve morning in the Emergency Room, which led to her admission for a brain bleed. We made our way home and got a few hours of sleep before she was discharged (“I’m not sure why she’s here,” said the attending physician.) so we picked her up and took her to her apartment. Did she fall again that night?
Of course she did.
This time, we asked if she was in pain or bleeding, then asked the attending staff not to send her back to the hospital. This bought us a day to see Mom in the desert.
2023 has been an expensive year, a sad year, a dumb year, a hate-filled year, a violence-choked year, and a year that we must not forget. Remember 2022? It was pretty terrible and sad and dumb. 2021? Not great! Previously, I filled these pages with scratchy-eyed moping about how awful things had become and maybe we should simply stay in bed 1. Not this year.
This year I’ve had it with the defeatism and dour predictions.
I’m just not having it from me or from you. This is our year to punch real-life nazis. The bad guys, who mostly identify as Republicans here in the United States, but not always, are trying to take away our rights so that their masters make more money and accrue more power. in 2024, we’ve got a job to do, vote them out and reinforce structures originally designed to keep thugs and autocrats away from power. Using the plain language of the Constitution’s Article 3 is a good start if we hope to keep insurrectionist off of the ballot.
It’s taken us 150 years to finish Reconstruction, but it looks like the time for half-measures and appeasement is over. Whatever we do is going to have to happen this year.
Yes, I’d rather lick my wounds and feel sorry and mourn and regroup, and I honestly hope that we have time for that soon, but this is going to be messy. The bad guys won’t respond to reason. Maybe they’ll respond to a solid pasting at the polls. That’s going to require all of us getting out there again.
Your pal,
– bob
1 My Mom’s mother had suggested that if things got too rough or scary, the best solution was probably to stay in bed with the covers pulled up. That might not be the best advice these days (or even in those days, to be fair).