All Hands On Deck

although I'm a solo sailor

I find myself using this phrase lately when posting comments on other people’s writing here on Substack. I am feeling a strong sense of urgency to spread the word that it doesn’t matter what your thoughts about specific candidates might be, or whether you have principled objections to some overseas wars, saving democracy here in America is the number one concern of anyone with a sentient brain. Good God(s) in heaven, why on earth would anyone even attempt to explain the Orange Blimp away. Just follow your nose and the stench from his entire life will guide you.

My memory goes back to the time when we faced the closest nuclear threat the world has ever known. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs occurred when I was still in high school. By the time I graduated in 1962 (at the tender age of 16 mind you) and headed off to college the Cuban Missile Crisis referred to above occurred. Now much as I love to think that the young people of today will save us, I know very succinctly that at the time of that world crisis, my 17-year-old self was mostly concerned that I would die a virgin. Cooler heads prevailed finally thanks to JFK et al., and I actually still had a maidenhead until a few years later—when I very deliberately planned my deflowering in California.

So all of this going down the memory hole leads me to hypothesize that most of politics is personal, as someone wise said once. We each actually have a strong self-interest in maintaining our own comfort. However, there are degrees of self-interest and most of us also maintain an interest in and compassion for the rest of our fellow humans. Some unfortunate souls seem to be born without any outward vision, however, and it would behoove all of us who see this to avoid placing such sad specimens anywhere near any governing bodies around the world. I know that it is sometimes easier to sit back and let others run things; after all, we have so much else to occupy us these days. But again going back to my own personal memories, post-War Britain was definitely the place to learn how to make do with very little. I am eternally grateful for the English Channel, which helped keep a barrier between the fighting and the homefront and allowed my parents to have two babies during WWII.

And now back to the present, where I’m still plugging away at the Alistair MacLean collection of novels, which started with “The Guns of Navarone.” I’m now on the last one “Goodbye California” the gist of which is that someone steals some Uranium 235 with the aim of causing an earthquake along one of the fault lines which will cause the whole State to fall into the sea. As I’ve said before, the writing is superb but the implications terrifying. The author wrote a foreword to this novel and referenced an actual earthquake which occurred in California on February 9, 1972 (he also mentions another 1976 quake in China), but his story is fictional. I haven’t reached the end yet, but so far the other novels in the collection do resolve satisfactorily. We’ll see . . .

But I’ll quote again my darling daughter who used to say “Why does ‘we’ll see’ always mean ‘No’, Mummy?” I keep thinking of this California story when the name Gavin Newsom is mentioned. While I think he would make a fabulous president some day, the time to have put him on the ballot was at the beginning of the election cycle. I personally believe we should hang tough and continue to beat the hell out of the message that this election is about the entire American way of life being on the line. If Joe Biden drops dead before November 5th, then Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom or some other worthy politician will carry on. We just have to get DEMOCRATS into office and SAVE DEMOCRACY.