Melania Trump on Monday gave Jimmy Kimmel another temporary bump in his feeble ratings by calling on ABC to do something about its late-night hate fest. Kimmel fantasized about the death of Donald Trump again, and Melania took the bait.
I see and hear so many horrible comments out there, on anti-social media, on mainstream media, walking down the street. Kimmel’s supposed jokes are some of the most horrible. I remember when he was funny, 20 or 30 years ago, and it’s sad to see this unpleasant and hateful shadow of his old self.
But the proper reaction to bad television is the same as it always has been — I change the channel. In a world of ratings and analytics, it is actually true that if you ignore it, it will eventually go away.
I can’t blame the First Lady for being upset, but all she accomplished was to make Kimmel feel relevant again. And truth be told, her husband is not exactly a role model for proper etiquette.
I try, when I see or hear something I would love to respond to with equal venom, to say to myself, “Love God and love your neighbor, and we are all neighbors.” Some days I have to say it several times, but it bears repeating. In fact, it stands up to frequent repetition.
April is fleeing. The year is almost one-third past. I am one-twelfth of the way to my 74th birthday. Time, time, time measures the fleeting numbers of our days.
It can feel like the days are flying by — how is it possible we are already this many years old?
But a long time is still a long time. If I get my dad’s 96 years of life (and that’s a big “if,” as no other man in my family lived that long), I have around 22 years to go. That is a long time, long enough to grow a human to adulthood, and that is not a swift process.
Twenty-two years ago I had published none of my 17 books, and I was barely one-quarter of the way through my long association with my dear Red. I had been editor of the venerable Door County Advocate for less than two years, and the paper had not yet been sold to the corporation that would gut that wonderful newspaper. All of that is a lifetime ago, so I may have as much as a lifetime to live.
I’m on my 32nd journal in 11 years; if I were to live another 22, would anyone ever read through my 96 journals? What a thought.
Will I look back someday on the completion of my Dimensia saga? (And wouldn’t you like to know what that is?) I know every day ends with boxes left unchecked on my to-do list, and so I expect my life will, too. Some days, even the “write in journal” box is unchecked.
Time is a-wasting, too. I have fewer miles to go before I sleep than I have already traversed, and that is always cause for some anxiety. We know what “should” be done today and we tackle it head-on — what work we should do on the tomorrow and next-year tasks are a little fuzzier to determine. What steps should I take today to reach what destination next April 27, or five April 27s from now? How can I know? It’s only a guess, a hope and a prayer what I will be doing in 10 minutes. All of our plans are a guess, a hope and a prayer, though, aren’t they?
And yet here I am, relatively safe and comfortable after 73 years of guessing, hoping and praying. If that seems like a long time, that’s because it is. Never mind that it was about five minutes ago that I was reading a book about the far-distant future called 1984 and watching a movie about decades from now called 2001: A Space Odyssey.
May I interest you in a little dystopia? Big Brother is watching you. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery.
Oh, but the sun is shining and the mayflowers have emerged after their long rest. Who can look up into all that blue and scream that the sky is falling? I cannot. I refuse to see any darkness on the horizon. A month ago this green grass was brown and gray, and we couldn’t go outside without layers. Dystopia, shmystopia.
There is music everywhere, pulsing rhythms on a cosmic scale, gentle birdsong, and no, this world is not going off the rails.
That guy you’re telling me to hate? Those people you want me to despise? I don’t see them. What I see are people who want a better world — is that a bad thing? They’re trying to give their kids more than they had growing up, trying to leave the world in better shape than they found it, just like you, just like me. Oh my goodness, the problem is that they’re in that other political party? Are you serious?
That man who just died, what did he sing again? “There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys, there’s only you and me, and we just disagree.” You don’t see eye to eye on everything — that makes you and him human, not evil. Good grief.
I dreamed we all were all right — what a lovely dream it was. I dreamed a man who was more than just a man said we should love our neighbors, and on this little speck of dust in an infinite universe, everyone we meet is a neighbor — so I love you, man. That doesn’t seem to be such a hard thing to do when you look at it that way.
And if you can’t love somebody because they’re not like you, you’re in deep trouble, buddy, because no two of us are alike. Everyone you meet is different from everyone else, so you can either love them or live a very lonely existence.
Oh, but he’s wrong about so much stuff? That’s OK. When I said it’s not about good guys and bad guys, I didn’t say somebody can’t be wrong or think stupid things.
This may come as a shock, but some of the stuff the other party talks about is right, and some of the stuff your party talks about is wrong. That doesn’t make them evil; they just see things differently.
Why are we even talking about this? Haven’t you noticed what a beautiful day this is?
And, by the way, war is war. Peace is peace. Ignorance is ignorance. Strength is strength. Freedom is freedom. And slavery is slavery, even when nobody’s watching.
