Summer is waning – almost gone. The sun rises noticeably later these days, passing lower in the sky, closer to the hills surrounding our little valley. In another week or two Home Depot will begin to slash prices on garden furniture. Soon after that, lawn chairs and patio umbrellas will be replaced by Halloween decorations; cackling electronic witches, howling wolf skeletons and moaning ghouls. In the supermarkets the summer novelties will be shoved off to the clearance aisle and bags of Halloween candies will populate the featured aisles. The way things are going there isn’t a ghost of a chance that kids will be trick or treating this year.
It might have worked out. The kids could conceivably have been going back to school. They won’t be though. Not here in the Bay Area. My grandchildren and all they’re classmates will be spending the first month or two doing remote learning.
That doesn’t square with the fantasy world of the White House. The President of the United States has used his typical gambit of bluster and intimidation, this time threatening to cut off funding to states that don’t mandate children back in school. It’s a threat that governors have shrugged off.
Since threats haven’t worked the propaganda arm of the administration is attempting to make the the national head whirl such as what happened at a recent press briefing when press secretary Kayleigh McEnany spun a web of contradictions. “The science should not stand in the way” (of schools opening) she cautioned. And then in the very next breath she boasted, “The science is on our side here. And we encourage localities and states to just simply follow the science and open our schools.” Yes you do have to read this a time or two to try to make sense of it but save yourself the effort. One can’t cobble coherence out of drivel.
If this briefing had occurred on the TV show The West Wing it would be followed by the scene in which Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, watching on TV would turn apoplectic and summon Toby Ziegler and C.J. Cregg into his office for a good old fashioned ass chewing. In the real West Wing there would be no ass chewing for spouting nonsensical double talk. In the current White House delivering hogwash is accepted procedure.
It wouldn’t be so maddening and disheartening if we, we being the collective America, had actually tried hard and despite our best efforts fallen short. I could live with trying and failing. What we’ve done though, failure due to lack of effort, is a bitter pill.
The Life in My Years 