Thawed Reaction

Mom and Daughter at Work Yesterday

The usual January thaw arrived overnight with temperatures fifty degrees warmer this morning than yesterday. That’s had the effect of melting a good portion of the snow pack which I was just getting used to. There’s not a lot of natural things uglier than New England in the winter without snow on the ground to mollify the stark landscape. The first few times my wife saw the USA it was during this time of year. She returned to Panama claiming we lived in an absolute wasteland. She subsequently experienced a New England summer and all was well. One of the side effects of the thaw is the uncovering of numerous contributions to Buddy’s constitutional grounds; so that was fun.

At The Doctor's Office

My daughter experienced an impromptu “bring your daughter to work day” when her nanny canceled at the last minute yesterday. This meant the First Blog Reader spent the day in the office while her mother tried to get some work done. I got the distinct impression during our nightly FaceTime call that it wasn’t an overly productive day for either of them. They were both a little cranky with each other. Luckily Daddy Daycare himself returned home last night as Wingman concluded his extended stay in New Jersey. The crankiness my granddaughter could have been due to receiving her flu shot(s) – one injection in each thigh (not fun). As usual she dazzled and didn’t shed a single tear or objection to the process – tough gal.

During One of Our Facetime Calls - You Can See us on Screen to the Right

I’ve read all of CJ Box’s Joe Pickett series and was recently casting about for the next thing to read and ordered the first in his other series – Cody Hoyt – called Back of Beyond. As with Pickett Box bequeaths a number of flaws to his hero as well as bad luck. Hoyt’s an alcoholic Montana cop investigating the death of his AA sponsor which leads him to a Yellowstone Park tourist group in search of the murderer. To complicate his search his own son is on the remote, out of contact group forcing him to barge his way into the wilderness to save him. It was both a very interesting crime drama as well as a taut thriller. Box is such a good writer that the reader is transported into the wilderness with his heroes and villains. I look forward to the next one in the series but I’ll be reading some actual books that my daughter left me first.

Just when you think the political landscape can’t get any more bizarre we have today’s bombshell of purported Russian comprise of the president elect. A collection of memos, written by a former spy from Britain’s intelligence services who was commissioned by Republican and Democrat operatives to investigate Trump during the presidential campaign was the source. The memos have been circulating among journalists since the summer, after party operatives distributed them, but most news outlets had deferred releasing them because the claims could not be confirmed. Someone in the intel community, obviously not a huge Trump fan, leaked them again to CNN who predictably reported it as “news”. If you follow the bouncing ball of this paragraph one bemoans the instant news we are all “blessed” with. Where have you gone Edward R. Murrow?

President Obama gave a remarkable farewell speech yesterday. He’s always been good at that which is what is so frustrating for me personally. I had such high hopes for him when he was first elected. He failed to live up to the lofty principles he espoused. While I know it’s naïve of me to felt his way about a career politician I genuinely believed he would try to change things. Instead he oversaw an era of unprecedented rancor which I know was not entirely of his own creation but was still frustrating that he didn’t rise above it. In the end though some beautiful words – I just wished he lived them as well as he said them:

“Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift.  But it’s really just a piece of parchment.  It has no power on its own.  We, the people, give it power – with our participation, and the choices we make.  Whether or not we stand up for our freedoms.  Whether or not we respect and enforce the rule of law.  America is no fragile thing.  But the gains of our long journey to freedom are not assured.

In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote that self-government is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty, but “from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken…to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth;” that we should preserve it with “jealous anxiety;” that we should reject “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties” that make us one.

We weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character are turned off from public service; so coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are not just misguided, but somehow malevolent.  We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others; when we write off the whole system as inevitably corrupt, and blame the leaders we elect without examining our own role in electing them.

It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we’ve been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.  Because for all our outward differences, we all share the same proud title:  Citizen.”