A Reason to Believe that Every Picture Tells a Story
I’m sitting in my dining room for a change of pace and because Handy Brad is painting a wall in the study where Kim’s bookshelves will go when Amazon delivers them. This WFH program requires versatility and my mid-back tweak requires me to sit upright while I write. The workman’s compensation board assigned to my WFH program tells me that care for my lower and mid back from extended sitting should be a priority for me. So I have taken up a position in the dining room staring out at the big picture window that faces the Pacific Ocean. It’s quite a picture that gets framed. The forty miles of Pacific is ten miles away as the crow flies over Vista and Carlsbad. The sky with its fluffy white cumulus clouds takes up 60% of the upper frame and has just the right balance for the green and boulder-strewn hills that range below. There is one house about a quarter mile away and otherwise the only signs of man are a greenhouse complex in a valley about half way to the ocean and a cellular tower on a distant hill next to the saddle that allows me to see Catalina Island on a clear day (I can just make the hilly island outline out today). To complete the picture, there is the orange flowering stalk of what I’ve discovered is called a Aloe Arborescens or Candelabra Aloe, which has grown up the fifteen feet to place its blooms right in the foreground of my dining room windowscape. It’s a lovely scene that needs to be appreciated, so I’m glad to be in here to see it in the daylight.
The first thought that occurred to me when I walked into this room and looked at the window was that 1971 Rod Stewart album Every Picture Tells a Story (Don’t it?). I sometimes like to reference the lyrics in old songs I recall, but when I looked up Rod Stewart’s lyrics to that song, they related to absolutely nothing I had on my mind (there was lots of looking in the mirror stuff and that is not on my mind). That made me think of the other song from that same album that Rod Stewart covered, written by Tim Hardin and then also sung by the Carpenters, called Reason to Believe. I like both of the songs, but Reason to Believe seems more appropriate in this difficult time when we all need a reason to believe that things are going to go back to normal (whatever that is) soon. Those lyrics are also, like most songs, about love, but can be transposed to other things in our lives as well.
If I gave you time to change my mind
I’d find a way just to leave the past behind
Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe
What that makes me think most about right now is some combination of Donald Trump’s administration and Fox News. What those two irresponsible, self-centered teams of reprehensible people have done to this nation over the last few weeks is unforgivable. Those are strong words, but the Washington Post has compiled a review video and text of all of the things said by Trump, Pence, Conway, Kudlow and others as well as Hannity, Ingraham, Pirro, Regan and Carlson. The misdirection and false claims have been atrocious regardless of the current reversal which is underway and for which these horrible people are trying to brush prior comments away under the rug. Where were all these people when their kindergarten teachers taught the lessons of owning your mistakes and admitting when you were wrong?
Trump has given himself and his administration a 10 rating for how they have handled this crisis when the world would rate their performance a 1 or 2 at best. In fact, I would posit that we may need to award a negative grade on the theory that a positive grade implies helping and a negative grade implies hurting. There is a distinct and probably measurable difference between doing no good, doing no harm and doing direct harm. It is my belief that both the administration and Fox News are directly liable for harm that has befallen the American public. Responsible leaders like Governor Jay Inslee and Governor Andrew Cuomo or even Dr. Anthony Fauci have had to take up the banner and risk denigration from Trump and Fox for standing up to the scientific truth.
Of course, like all cowards and irresponsible people, Trump and Fox News are changing their tune and getting with the program as though they were always in line with righteousness. Only Tucker Carlson has some case for redemption for having changed his view early and taken up the cause at Mar-a-Lago last weekend with Trump personally and supposedly helping to change his mind. What does it say about Trump and our current administration that it takes a TV news personality to force reality on our stable genius leader? If it were up to me and me alone, I would start by rescinding Fox News’ broadcasting license on the grounds that they have contributed to the spreading of vast and great falsehoods at the expense of the life and safety of the American people. Then I would force a 25th Amendment removal of Trump, Pence and his entire cabinet on grounds of utter and unsustainable incompetence leading to direct harm to the life and safety of the American people. What both of these teams have perpetrated is an assault on our country, pure and simple, and they did it for their own selfish purposes. Fox did it for ratings and profit as well as ideological perversion. Trump and company did it out of stupidity and general greed and ego mongering. This was a fun game for all of them right up until people have started to die and people’s livelihoods have been put at risk. These people have undeniably betrayed the American people and its no joke any longer. Who among us is not being directly impacted by this?
We are all fighting to push back against Bernie Sanders because we believe that America is not ready or willing to move into a socialistic regime, and yet here we are…heading into a necessary socialistic state of being. Trump asks for $850 billion to bail out hurting industries (a mere drop in the bucket for the harm that has been done). Trump is now floating the universal income idea of sending everyone $1,000 to help ease their pain (another drop in an even bigger bucket of pain). I say that this is all too little, too late. I am not against any of it, but just do not want the idiots that put us here to be relied upon to do any of this fixing right. I want responsible and selfless leaders to do what needs to be done.
I want a reason to believe. And as far as what we have seen daily of Trump and company and Fox and friends, the video images and words paint a very clear picture that tells a very clear story and its not a pretty one.