Wednesday, February 03, 2021                                       2:07 AM

Cheer the Mighty Coming (as We Mourn the Going)   (2021Feb 03)

Whoops, it’s my 65^th birthday already. I’d thought I sat down here before midnight, but no such luck. Some party. My sister called last night to tell me our brother, Stephen, had passed (quietly, surrounded by his family) a little after midnight.

We’d been estranged for years, but he was, after all, my brother—the last one I had, come to that. Kath and I are the last two of the original seven. It’s been a gray 24 hours, if that’s understandable.

I won’t go into details about him, or me, or even the inclement weather. Let’s just say that, having been told by doctors I would be dead soon, 17 years ago, and more recently, even sooner, and then having survived my entire family, with the exception of my baby sister, and achieved the age of 65 (which used to mean something) I’m simply puzzled by the whole nonsense.

So, I’ve been thinking dark thoughts. Like, d’ya think people bestow Authority upon those in power, in the same way we bestow Love upon those we care for—that is, when they don’t necessarily deserve it, and almost never appreciate it?

What went through the minds of people who fell into Trump-zombie-hood, just before they lost all faith in the news they’d watched all their lives, the teachers, doctors and scientists they’d trusted all their lives, and turned into a simple receiver for Whatever Trump broadcasted from then on?

Now, politicians, generally, have no business fund-raising or any other nonsense. When I vote for someone, I expect a day’s work out of them—and not working on keeping their dang job, I tell ya! And we finally have that in good ol’ Unca Joe Biden—the new Unca Sam, ya hear?

And that’s why we’re all so uncomfortable—we’ve never done this before. I mean, we came close, voting for Obama, out of a desperate desire for ‘woke inclusion’, i.e. reason. But now we have voted for a president, simply because it was the correct and reasonable course of action (for anyone who hoped to keep America intact, at least).

We don’t love Biden. He is not our second coming. He is our safety. We are the people who want to live by virtue of reason—and he’s our F-ing guy. Charisma is not at issue today. And nerds, I exhort you, cheer the mighty coming of reason in democracy. May it linger awhile.