Day 550 – The Two or More Realities

Saturday, July 11,2026

There are two distinct realities in this country, and at least several offshoots. One is the reality governed by facts. Another is the reality governed by “alternate facts,” that is to say by delusions that people tell each other. Eventually, the alternate reality bumps into the real reality and it whimpingly crumbles. Only to be reinvented with new and bizarre alternate facts. This is a dangerous world, the alternate reality, because it can ruin you, kill you, and make your life less than what it could have been. Same with religion. 

Facing the truth has been a hard thing for people to accept. It is easier to make up something and blame or worship that then it is to actually try to understand. Think of the people who run into an ocean bay when the water leaves the bay for seemingly no reason. What that should tell you is that a giant wave is coming and it has picked up any water nearby. At some point the waders who delightedly ran into the empty bay have to face the reality of a giant wall of water coming faster than they can out run it. The water leaving the bay should be a sign to run like hell in the opposite direction and find the highest ground you can as fast as possible. It’s, as they say, the canary in the coal mine.

For me, right now in today’s world, I don’t see a dead canary; I see a whole flock of them dead and lifeless. I can’t take a step without squishing one. 

Remember the book “Everything Donald Trump Touches Turns to Shit”? How true that title is. Have you seen the aerial view of The White House recently? The round circle of dirt where the fighting cage was. The hole beside it where the ballroom is supposed to go. The Ellipse beyond is mostly dead grass.

The Reflecting Pool is now a rectangle of green algae and scum. Now fenced off. The Kennedy Center is deserted. Trump’s name is removed but he can’t bring himself to show the real name. It’s still covered by a canvas tarp. Now he wants to build a 250 foot monument to himself. The legal limit is 130 feet, but his lawyers argue that’s a local law and should not apply to Federal stuff. What? Who are these lawyers. I’d like to see the media cover this stuff by saying “Trumps lawyers: J dingleberry and Joan Numbnuts …”

The State Fair he did on the Mall was terrible from every report I read. Yes it was very hot, and there was a dangerous thunderstorm, but you can’t blame the weather for the lack of anything to see or do once you got through the security line, which took hours, and confiscated your water and your sunscreen. The decorations were truly Trumpian – looked okay from a distance but once you got close you realized it was poorly stapled canvas on styrofoam. The mock up of the Trump Arc de Trump was popular because it threw some shade and was one of the only places to get out of the sun. Fortunately, the Smithsonian had the museums stay open late so people could go in and recuperate in the air conditioning. Who knows, maybe they even went to see something. I mean they saw nothing out on the Mall. Too bad the Smithsonian was not given the permits for the 250th celebrations, displays and performances they had been working on for years. Such things were practically automatic, but not anymore. Theft (“redirection of funds”), hijacking (creating new commissions at the last minute to bypass the ones appointed by Congress and had been planning for years, and extortion (“Give me what I want of I’ll withhold funds for, I dunno, hurricane relief?”) is now the norm.

I wonder how Mike Huckabee’s daughter, now Governor of Arkansas, and former news room queen under Trump I, is liking being turned down by her old boss for disaster relief funds? I guess she could ask that blond (bimbo? dipshit? clueless one?) who now has that job. I mean ya gotta love a press secretary who says things are better under Trump because his unemployment number is higher than Biden’s.

I think about “What has Trump done for the country?”

A new article has come out that says a government agency has estimated the cost of the Musk/Trump DOGE cuts to personnel has cost $22B – that Billion. Twenty two billion to pay people to not work. Yup. By cutting personnel it cost us more, and we didn’t get the benefit of them doing any work. In a stunning slap of reality the alternate facts world ran into some real world problems when they cut staff. As an example, they determined that maybe we should have people who take care of our nuclear stockpile, take care of our nuclear stockpile and not sit at home watching Murray on Fox. (What there is no show called Murray? Well there ought to be.)

And then there is the red card disaster. The one thing we had that was enjoyable and didn’t involve Trump and brought people from around the world together was The World Cup. But that wasn’t okay with The Donald. He had to stick his big fat body in the middle of it. A guy on team USA got red carded. That meant he could not play in the rest of that game and was suspended from the next game.

We can argue about whether it should be a red card. I certainly don’t understand the penalty rules in this league. I played for four years, coached for two, attended games of my children, my nieces and nephews games but I have never seen the hand to hand combat that goes on in these games. If I was reffing both teams would end up being red carded. 

But Donald who freely admitted he didn’t know what a red card was, all of a sudden decides this USA player’s red card was not a red card. He contacted his bud, Mr. FIFA President and creator and gifter of the FIFA Peace Prize to Donald Trump, and says, “Can’t we do something about that red card?” The rules are clear – no, there is nothing you can do. Unless you are the Art of the Deal Donald and Mr, Head-Up-Donald’s-Rectum then Yeah, no problem.

Now I have to put on my MAGA hat for a second (Ouch, so tight). You can look at this red carded guy and know he’s really from a shit-hole country. I’m mean he’s black. Really black. He’s not a ‘Merican. Well, actually you are partially right. He wasn’t supposed to be an American.,His mom was trying to fly to London and they wouldn’t’ let her on the plane because she was so pregnant. I don’t know why, if she pooped on the flight she’d get better medical care on the plane than here. But she had the kid in New York, so eh’s a New Yorker. It’s nice to see the President helping a kid that should have been from a shithole country. Wait, his mom was flying to London. He would have been a Brit. Would that make The United Kingdom a shithole country. Well, after Brexit it kind of is. Nick Farage was way out in front of this “let’s ruin our own country” movement long before Trump (that silver backed gorilla) got his hand on the steering wheel of government and drove the country into the ditch.

But I will say this – Trump is a great uniter. True it’s against him and whatever he is doing. But MAGA, progressive, Democrat, Republican, poor, and maybe even rich – it really doesn’t matter, people are angry. They are angry at what Trump is doing, and whatever he is doing it is making it worse, and what he is not doing which he should be doing, like ya-know – running the government, and running it in such a way as to help the country, the world and the people in it (the country, the world). Nah, screw that.

*Okay, not really. she is standing on a step that adds several inches. She was the group’s waitress on our last day in Palenque, Mexico. Whe I went to take the step down to get to our table she and a waiter both offered to help the old man take the step. I took their hands, pulled them up onto the step and I stepped down to show them now we were all about the same height. She laughed very hard at that. At the end of the meal I asked Eric to take our picture. Unfortunately the close quarters prevented the visual joke from being made clear. However, you can see her smiling. She alos has a classic Mayan nose, a very distinct feature on Mayan stela. She would have fit right in at Palenque when it was one of the Mayan super powers around 750 A.D.