Though certainly the punishment wouldn't have fit the crime

If Joe Biden hadn't pardoned his son, I think Hunter's punishment should have been to be put in a cell with Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.

 

Thank you, Senator Schatz! Asked who the Dems should look to as a Presidential nominee in 2028, he said: "I think whomever we nominate has to talk like a normal person. A person who is real. If you had them over for dinner, you could understand what the hell they were talking about. And so I think we are looking for someone who can plausibly fit in as a human being all across the country. I don’t know who that’s going to be. But the challenge is going to be, how do you maintain your progressive values and not sound like you just got your post-doctoral thesis in sociology.”

I've been saying this for so long that my original examples of appealing politicians who speak like the rest of us were Ed Rendell, John McCain and Joe Biden.

Enough with…Existential crises! Inflection points! and Blue ribbon ad hoc stopgap measure bipartisan blabbityblahs! Sound like a normal person — like the guy at the end of the bar.

Like, dare I say it, Donald Trump.

 Yet another reason I'm glad we elected Barack Obama in 2008: So we won't have to refer to Elon Musk as our first African-American President.

Roll over, Bill Shakespeare

By popular demand, by which I mean 100% of my responders...and very possibly, readers..., and by which I mean, well, Niece Becca, I am going to post the poem, if one can even call it that, that I referred to a few posts below when I was writing about um, checks post, poetry.

As a reminder, this was what I wrote while on my 4871 mile bike trip from San Francisco in 1982 passing through LA, San Diego, Flagstaff, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Burlington VT, home, and finally around the field in Veterans Stadium before completing the last 60+ miles to Atlantic City.

God?

God? Why do you put the wind in my face

instead of my back

 so you could help push me along?

(A gust of wind on my back)                                

God? Why do you keep the sun so bright 

when my water bottles are dry 

and the next town is 25 miles away?

(A small cloud covers the sun)                            

God? Why do people throw things at me as they pass

and miss me with their cars

 by only a foot or two?

(A car slows down as it passes and the people inside              

 ask me if there is anything I need)            

God? Why do I carry on these running

 conversations with you,

 if I keep telling people that I don't believe in you?

(A gust of wind on my back)                         

Perfect sense

I remember when my kids were born, holding them, thinking they were perfect in every way, and with Cheryl and me as parents, and having been born into such an amazing extended family, they would grow up to be perfect humans. And I think it’s safe to say I was not the only parent thinking my kids were and would grow up to be perfect.

And yet we know, as humans, no perfect little ones grow up to be perfect big ones. At least not by the time they learn to talk, no matter what Pink sings:

Pretty, pretty please
Don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than
Less than perfect

Pretty, pretty please
If you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing
You are perfect
To me

On the other hand, after reading any obituary or going to any memorial service, by the time we die, you’d think Pink, and we parents, did indeed have it right.

Dunworryaboutit!

I’ve often heard the admonition that one shouldn’t worry about what other people think. And I always thought the saying was meant in terms of what they thought of me (duh!), or ourselves anyway.

After the 2024 election, it took me a month or so to realize, it also applies to what people think about anything.

As I once concluded, completely unscientifically: there is no single opinion that is held by every person in the world, because if they did, it wouldn’t be an opinion, it would be a fact.

So why should it upset us so when people have different opinions than ours, including for whom we vote.

Don’t worry about what other people think

(Postscript: Turns out I wrote something very similar 8-9 years ago: https://jmcvickar.blogspot.com/2016/01/go-ahead-and-try-me-tell-me-what-you.html I wonder how many other times I've done that.)

But no, seriously, what do you think of me now!?

So now, back to the topic of validation. I recently decided that I don’t want any more. And it is one of the most freeing exciting energizing decisions I’ve ever made. Like breaking up with a bad girlfriend. (Or so I hear. I’ve never had one. A bad one, that is. I’ve had girlfriends. Seriously.)

I reluctantly confess here in electronic print, for the ages, that I used to, at worst, want, and maybe even seek validation. Plaudits, approval, any form of positive reactions to, well, me. My humor, my appearance, my verbal contributions, my blog entries, my observations, my possessions, my wife, my family, my fantasy baseball team. 

And I just don’t anymore.

It was a conscious decision, a flick of the internal light switch, to just no longer care whether people told me I had done a nice thing or was wonderful or smart or witty. Okay, I admit that it will still get me all a-twitter when someone actually does say something nice to me or laughs at something I say. It just that I no longer seek it or, more importantly, no longer am hurt if I don’t receive the bon mots I thought I deserved. (And don’t bon mots just Sound delicious!)

And as simple as it sounds…yeah, it actually has been just that simple. Though there have been times where I’ve had to remind myself that I don’t care if someone doesn’t notice that I was the one who had that brilliant new idea or observation first. Or notices that I did some unexpected chore, or heck, even an expected one (I am a male after all) around the house or did something nice for someone. And when I do remind myself, I feel the joy all over again of not even caring.

Part of it too is that it means that I simply accept me as I am. I don’t need external approval. I only need to be happy with myself and what kind of person I am. Doesn’t mean I think I never do, or more likely say, anything wrong or hurtful, or don’t have things I can be better about. In fact, one of the things I like about myself, or anyone, is a desire to keep trying to work on one’s shortcomings, but also accepting that we are human and none of us is perfect. It is all so incredibly freeing. And yeah yeah, more than a tad embarrassing that it was ever so important to me in the first place.