After weeks of remote learning and months of little contact with their friends, six of my grandchildren got together yesterday. And the noise from their frivolity grew deafening at times. They ran, they jumped, they screamed, they wrestled each other to the ground.
It is so nice to see children just being children as if our lives had gone back to normal. But of course there is no normal any longer.
So we just have to make our own pretend normal out of the abject abnormal that engulfs us..
New cases of Covid-19 pop up after every public gathering of any size, yet we have a President who is crusading for re-election by encouraging his followers to gather without masks in close quarters to cheer him on.
And at Kenosha, Wisconsin, the latest site of unrest following a police shooting of yet another black man, the local authorities shudder because of who plans to visit there on Tuesday. To him, it represents a political prop like that church across Lafayette Park as he tries to weaponize protest to make it conform to his law and order message.
Sadly, millions of Americans cannot -- or don't choose to -- see through this. They see violence and accept his B.S. that only a police crackdown will restore order. Such crackdowns will only increase the violence, as any informed person or student of history knows.
Shamelessly, this man blames the opposing political party for the rioting.
Hi's vision is dystopian, disconnected from fact, and self-serving in the way only an extreme narcissist could conjure.
There is no Democratic America or Republican America when it comes to attitudes about rioting. There is no party encouraging violence or mayhem. The violence is borne of many decades of frustration by citizens fed up with racism and social inequality.
Theirs is a plea for justice not for chaos. The overwhelming number of protestors eschew violence.
Those breaking windows and setting fires are not partisans to any cause espoused by any potential leader. They act on their own, against everyone's interest.
As I contemplate all of this, I feel like Alice gazing at the looking glass. All reality is bent as if we're collectively on a dangerous hallucinatory drug. That a sitting President seeks to exploit this for his own gain is reprehensible.
But out in this neck of the woods, where diversity and freedom of expression are valued, not feared, by the overwhelming majority of people, my grandchildren play on, oblivious to the threat to our democracy from a tyrant whose name they barely know.
The young ones cannot vote -- yet. But we can. And we must.
***
The news marches on.
* One person shot dead in Portland following clashes between BLM activists, pro-Trump supporters -- The groups had earlier faced off along a highway on-ramp and on downtown city streets. (Washington Post)
* The national political conventions over the last two weeks set the battle lines for the election’s remaining weeks. Joe Biden is focusing on President Trump’s virus management, while the president is hammering a law-and-order message. (New York Times)
* Secret Service copes with coronavirus cases in aftermath of Trump appearances -- The president’s insistence on traveling and addressing crowds has increased the strain on the agency. (Washington Post)
* ‘End of the Line’: School Bus Industry in Crisis Because of the Coronavirus (New York Times)
* 2 Russian aircraft make 'unsafe' intercept of US Air Force B-52 bomber (CNN)
* College towns growing alarmed over outbreaks among students (AP)
* CDC Projects Official U.S. Death Toll Will Top 200,000 in September (Democracy Now)
* Intel community will cease in-person election security briefings to Congress (ABC)
* Yellowstone National Park said the Giantess Geyser erupted after 6 1/2 years of dormancy on Aug. 25. Historically, it erupted 2-6 times a year. (USA Today)
* Humans Take a Step Closer to ‘Flying Cars’ -- A Japanese company said it had completed a manned flight of its electrical vertical takeoff and landing machine. Experts say the technology needs work and that it will be expensive. (New York Times)
***
It's time for some Marvin Gaye:
Way down in my heart
Although we are miles apart
If you ever need a helping hand
I'll be there on the double
Just as fast as I can
Don't you know that there
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe
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