Ringing It In

I DON'T CLAIM to live the world's most exciting life. As far as I can remember, I was asleep at the stroke of midnight, the moment 2024 became 2025, another science fiction year. I haven't celebrated New Year's Eve in nearly forty years, as best I can remember. But I had a wonderful New Year's Eve this year. I had a colonoscopy. Seriously. Just like my doctors and everybody else told me in advance, the actual procedure isn't bad at all, its the prep which is horrible, drinking that vile liquid, going to the bathroom what seemed like thousands of times, not eating for nearly two days. It was wonderful when it was all over, and I coud begin eating again. I haven't stopped since. Its probably healthy to have your digestive system "cleaned out" once in a awhile. This was my first colonscopy,and my last. The doctor was a nice young man in his forties, and he asked me, "You're sixty nine, and this is your first?" When I said "yes", he said "better late then never", or something like that. I don't have to do it again for ten years, since I had no polyps, and I can use the home "Colon Guard" method then, which I think I will. I spent my Christmas Day without even a single word of human contact, and I spent New Year's Eve having a colonoscopy, and I enjoyed the holiday season enormously. I have just about decided that being happy, under all circumstances is largely merely a matter of choosing to be. For all appearances, we and the entire world are in a desperate situation, what with all the wars, economic disasters, natural disasters, and so forth. Plus, on top of all that, Donald Trump and his criminal gang, by which I mean him, his associates, advisors, supporters, and the entire Republican party and MAGA organizatsion, is on the verge of coming to power, real power. The only recourse is to pay close attention to anything and everythign they do or try to do, and react accordingly. "Accordingly" will, undoubtedly, for the most part, consist inactive, indeed strenuous opposition. However, on the other hand, it might not. Like I told a dear friend and fellow Trump hater, we must always give credit where credit is due. If, for instance, for some incredible reason Donald trump awakens one fine day and is suddenly a good person, all the better, embrace it. Somebody told me quite recently that Trump has seid something about letting workers, good hard workers, remain in the country, even if they are undocumented, "illegal" immigrants, rather than automatically deporting all of them, all eleven million of them. I hope this is true, that he is reconsidering. If he follows through on mass deportation, it will seriously harm our economy. If he fails to carry out his mass deportation of illigeal Hispanic immigrants, as he repeatedly has promised , many of his most ardent anti-immigrant MAGA members might not be happy. Also, Trump has indicated that he would not sign into law a national ban on abortion. That might not make his ultra socially conservative evangelical religious fanatics happy. Throughout the MAGA ranks there are many who want to completelly ban abortion in the United States, and many more who want to deport all eleven million illegal immigrants. These are not the only issues on which there is likely to be a split in the MAGA Republican ranks. Climate change, the most pressing issue of all, is gaining acceptance by a growing number of conservatives, who want to address it, and yet, Trump has chosen to cast his political lot with the climate denier crowd, which will soon prove to be a serious mistake. The year twenty tewnty five must be the year in which we all agree that we have serious problems, but that if we all work together, they can be solved.