Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep …
Those were the opening lines of the morning show theme song on the radio station in my little hometown when I was growing up, and the soundtrack for hundreds (thousands?) of mid-Missouri families going about their preparations for school and work. It was the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra version, an oldie — big band music, with lots of muted horns and melodic flourishes. It was the background to my youthful mornings for years.
Things change. Nowadays, I sip my coffee and scroll the news on my phone. Today, I read an interview with Donald Trump, who, when asked about getting help from other countries in the Iran conflict, replied: “We don’t need anyone.” Two sentences later, he said, “Other nations must step up to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.” He then claimed the U.S. has already “won” the war, but quickly added that we can’t leave “until we finish the job” — by sending 5,000 Marines to the combat zone.
Just direct your feet
To the sunny side of the street …
From across the room, my wife reads aloud: “A judge blocked RFK Jr.’s overhaul of vaccine policy, saying its procedural actions were likely illegal.” We take a little solace, leavened by the knowledge that this administration sees federal judicial rulings as suggestions, at best.
Back on my own phone, I read about Cuba, which is suffering from an American blockade that’s led to a total blackout of the island’s power grid. Hospitals, schools, food storage, water pumps, everything. “We’ll probably be taking Cuba in some form,” Trump said, when asked about it. “I think I can do anything I want with it.”
Can’t you hear that pitter-pat
The happy tune is your step …
I pour another cup and read that Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr is threatening to revoke broadcast licenses of major networks over their “fake news” coverage of the war in Iran. Trump immediately backed him up, calling media reporting of the war “corrupt and highly unpatriotic.” Trump went beyond criticizing broadcast media, also condemning The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, saying their reportage amounted to wanting the United States “to lose the war.” Which we’ve already won, right? So confusing.
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street …
I just can’t with this bullshit, every freaking day. These second-rate people don’t respect — or even understand — the First Amendment. You know, the one that gives news media the right to report and publish the news as they see fit, even if (especially if) it’s critical of the government. The one that gives you and me the right to read any news source — and anyone’s opinion — we want to, even if they expose or point out the corruption of the people in power. It’s the essential rule of law that gives all Americans — and all American media — the right to free speech.
Dictators hate it, and so do wannabe dictators who won’t remove a baseball cap to respect the bodies of slain American troops on their “dignified transfer” home; who play golf while sending our troops into harm’s way on the other side of the world; who send masked and armed thugs to seize people off American streets without warrants; and who can’t keep their thoughts straight long enough to come up with a coherent — or truthful — sentence explaining why the hell we’re doing any of this.
It’s an outrage, all of it. This whole administration is a clown show, a bloody circus with a cast of fools and toadies that’s getting thousands of people killed and imprisoned and none of them can come up with a remotely rational explanation. None of them has the courage or moral rectitude to say to their emperor, “Enough!”
I’m grateful I still have the freedom to write these critical words, and grateful there is a publication willing to print them. If the bunch currently in power had their way, voices like mine and papers like the Flyer would be silenced. As would any other media outlet not toeing the government line. This is serious stuff, people. The American side of the street is no longer sunny.