Recently, I watched the Republican presidential debates on Fox News and I was taken by how far a onetime great political party, the party that gave us Lincoln and Eisenhower, has fallen into madness and extremism. Don’t get me wrong, the Democratic Party is barely functional, and has plenty of issues, too.  But watching the stage full of candidates try to out crazy one another was like watching a car wreck involving the clown car from the nearest circus. It’d be funny if not for the fact that one of these Bozos might be the next president.

The debate was won by the current front runner, the xenophobic and racist ex-reality television star, Donald (“The Donald”) trump, who dominated the stage and was by far the funniest of the clowns.  The debate got off to a great start when the extraordinarily attractive Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly asked Trump about disparaging comments he’s made about women, calling them “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” to which Trump came back with, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”  It was a funny and pretty quick response, and I don’t agree with those who say Trump should apologize to O’Donnell – she’s a comedienne who has made plenty of disparaging remarks of her own – so she’s fair game. What followed was fascinating and very revealing.  In answering the question, Trump went on a rant about political correctness, then closing with “and honestly, Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me …” He has since gone on the offensive against Kelly, who, in response to the attacks, keeps citing her own journalistic credentials, which, as far as I can tell, consist of being extraordinarily attractive. Kelly aside, the Trump remarks about “not being nice” to her and subsequent remarks about “blood coming out of her eyes, out of her whatever” because she had the audacity to ask him a tough question is beyond arrogance and insensitivity.  It is spiteful, childish and thin skinned. It’s all funny and makes good headlines and sound bites, but are these qualities we want in a President?  In the most powerful man in the world?

Trump has also been under fire for remarks about illegal immigrants from Mexico, and has refused to back down from them, making illegal immigration the center piece of his campaign.  His plan is to deport all the illegals in the country today, build a wall along the entire U.S. Mexico border, and remove the birthright to citizenship that is guaranteed in the fourteenth amendment.  It’s so simple! Let’s look at these ideas one by one:

1) Deporting all the illegal immigrants – there are currently estimated to be about 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., 6.5 million, or 60%, of which are from Mexico.  The question is, how is President Trump going to go about rounding these people up? Who will be charged with this – local or federal law enforcement, the military, the national guard?  Any effort of “rounding up and deporting” this many people will undoubtedly make mistakes, and accidently deport current American citizens.  And what of the cost? And what of the great Republican principles of small government, and keeping government out of our lives?  Remember all the insane and unsubstantiated rumors about Obama and death squads and sharia law that have supposedly been coming for the last seven years now – and now, you have a candidate for president saying he would as part of policy have armed law enforcement or military personnel rounding up eleven million people within our borders?  Who is going to pay for this? 9% of illegal immigrants, or more than a million, are from Asia.  Are we going to round them up, too?  What about the 6%, or more than 700,000 who are here illegally from Canada and Europe? Or are they too light-skinned?

2) A wall along the entire border – it would have to cover 1, 989 miles of some of the most rugged and inhospitable terrain in North America.  The financial cost of such an effort would be astronomical, and it would do nothing to prevent illegal immigration coming in from other countries – refugees from Asia, boat people from the Caribbean, even disgruntled Canadians.  And a bit of recent history – remember the last wall?  That little thing in Berlin?  Every American president from John F. Kennedy to George H.W. Bush denounced it as an affront to freedom loving people around the world.  And now we’re going to build one ourselves?  Ronald Reagan once said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” – so we could build a new one? I guess the Statue of Liberty doesn’t face south.

3)  No birthright to citizenship – all those tea partiers and freedom loving conservatives who invoke the constitution as sacred a document as the bible are suddenly behind repealing the fourteenth amendment.  I guess the second amendment, the one that gives us the right to own guns, is the only one that matters.

And by the way, speaking of guns, Trump says that the illegal immigrants are a bunch of murderers and rapists.  No way we can allow these people in – they might take victims away from the murders and rapists who are already here! So far, in 2015, there has been on average more than one mass shooting a day – yet we can’t do anything about gun registration because of our sacred constitution.  Yet when confronted with “anchor-babies,” the constitution becomes disposable again.

I’m tired of how selective the conservative outrage is.  We have to drug test welfare recipients because they are cheating the tax payers, while at the same time no one seems to care that we are paying exponentially more to cover the loopholes and cronyism on Wall Street that constitutes corporate welfare.  We have to send our military into difficult and dangerous situations in foreign lands to stamp out terrorism, while at the same time, when innocent children are massacred in a school shooting, arms are thrown up in the air and the “you can never stop bad people from doing bad things” argument is trotted out again.  There have been more than 8.600 Americans killed by guns so far in 2015 – about three times as many as were killed on 9/11.  We went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. What have we done about gun violence?  – nothing.  Not even simple, quick and unobtrusive background checks.

Back to immigration – if only there was some alternative to Trump’s crazy and expensive plan.  Like the bill passed by the Senate in 2013 by a 68 to 32 margin, a rare moment of bipartisanship in recent Congressional history, that would implement the most sweeping changes in immigration laws in over a generation, including a pathway to citizenship and unprecedented resources for securing the border.  But wait – the House leadership has refused to allow this bill to be voted upon.  So instead we are treated to the bat-shit crazy ramblings of a second rate celebrity posing as a politician.

The Donald, though, speaks his mind!  He says what he thinks – what he thinks will draw more attention to himself. He’s a breath of fresh air! – unless you are sitting downwind from him.

Eventually, I think people are going to grow tired of Trump’s antics and look to a more “serious” candidate.  Like …. Scott Walker?  I don’t think so. People are just beginning to realize what a bizarre idiot the man who’s only “qualification” is smiting those awful and terrifying terrorists also known as school teachers really is.  Jeb Bush? It used to be assumed that Jeb was George  W’s smarter brother, because, well, a chunk of concrete was smarter then George W.  But now that Jeb’s been out there on the trail for a couple of months, it’s becoming evident that the score is concrete two, Bushes zero.

The only candidate who seemed to possess even a hint of sanity during the debate was Ohio governor John Kasich. He seemed serious and thoughtful and well spoken (if only when compared to the others), so he has no chance.

Marco Rubio?  Get the man a glass of water.  Chris Christie? The Ricks – Perry and Santorum? Mike Huckabee? Bobby Jindall? Dr. Ben Carson? Ted Cruz?  Lindsey Gramm?

Democrats are licking their chops, convinced that none of these will be electable in a national election, and that by appealing to the radical base of their party, Republicans are alienating the broader main stream electorate.  But I can’t help but think that if one of these clowns gets the nomination, it’s a sad indictment of where we are as a country. We deserve formidable and substantial candidates of character and intelligence from any party that puts a candidate on the ballot.

Unless, instead of President, we are electing King Clown. If that’s the case, the system is working perfectly.

It’s back to school time again, and it’s time to get those no good, lazy leftist overpaid whiny teachers off their butts and back into the classroom.

At least this is how many in my state of Wisconsin profess to feel about teachers these days.  Ever since presidential candidate and governor in absentia Sarah Pal__, wait, I mean Scott Walker (sorry – I  accidently mistook one brainless self-promoting Republican for another) came into power, teachers and education have been targets, first in removing the right to collectively bargain and now through ridiculous and unprecedented budget cuts. Walker is making the vilification of teachers and his “bold” and “unintimidated” assault on them the center of his presidential qualifications.  He has even compared teachers to ISIS.

That’s right – he’s compared the people we leave our children with every day to barbaric terrorists who behead people.

And many on the right see nothing wrong with this.

Here are a few of the  complaints about teachers taken point by point:

 “Teachers are overpaid”

Which ones, the ones working in the violent inner city or the ones teaching the obnoxious and spoiled and conceited suburban kids?  The point is, they have our children for about eight hours a day and their job is to try and make something valuable out of them.  What could be more important? What could be more difficult?  What do we love more than our children?

“They only work nine months out of the year”

And they put up with the worst brats and most obnoxious parents, they have to maintain licenses and accreditations, keep up with curriculum changes, and stay fresh.  All for less money than they could make in the private sector. A summer vacation doesn’t seem extravagant – if we want them to retain their sanity.

“They’re nothing but glorified babysitters”

And take your two income household and see how long your jobs last without these “babysitters” to look after your kids.  Or go out to dinner for a couple of hours and pay that bubble headed teenaged girl next door to look after your kids.  Then imagine paying that same rate for eight hours a day, five days a week.

“They’re pushing a political agenda that conflicts with our faith”

No, it’s not an agenda, it’s called science and history – and before you complain that evolution is blasphemy and that the bible says the earth is only six thousand years old and that dinosaurs and humans co-existed and that global warming is just a theory and why do we need to teach science when the Lord God will look after us all, consider this – if we stop teaching science in favor of fundamentalist theology, where will the cure for cancer of heart disease or Parkinson’s disease come from? Where will the people who fix our cars or our washing machines or make sure our food and drinking water is safe come from?  And as far as global warming being “only a theory,” remember that gravity is also only a theory.

If your child isn’t taught foundational and fundamental English, math, science and history, what role is he or she likely to have as an adult? Parents are supposed to want better for their children than for themselves.

“My kids are grown and out of the house – why should my property taxes pay for the next generation of kids?

When you go to the hardware store, do you want the cashier to be able to calculate how much change you get back? What is it worth to you to keep teenaged kids in school?  Or would you rather see them roaming the streets, bored and stupid, looking for trouble to get into.  Everyone benefits from a well-educated populous.  When education is effective, income goes up and crime goes down.

And save your breath, I know what you’re going to say:  “If the system is so great, why do we have so many problems: Inner city drop outs and gangs and crimes, childhood obesity, low literacy and test scores, teen pregnancies …” and on and on.  Look, I’m not saying there aren’t issues. But these issues aren’t going to be solved by demonizing those who are on the front line, nor are they going to be solved by five second slogans or sound bites.  It took a long time for things to get this bad, it’s going to take some serious work and innovation to straighten these things out.   I’m having trouble grasping how removing teachers’ rights to collectively bargain or by lowering the minimum requirements to teach or slashing budgets is going to fix anything.

“They get better benefits and pensions than I do.”

This may be true – and if it is, you should protest loudly and energetically – and demand you get just as good benefits as they do!  The sad reality is we are all paying a lot more for health care and receiving a lot less in pensions than we were only a couple of years ago.  So why, unless we are really stupid, would we want to bring someone who is getting better benefits down to our level?  Wouldn’t we be better off asking why our benefits aren’t as good?  Wouldn’t we be better off raising ourselves up instead of tearing others down?

Teachers are people who have chosen, as their vocation, to help our children find and reach their potential. They have chosen to serve us, the parents, and we in turn put out trust in them to reap the generosity of their souls and the fruits of their endless hard work.  It’s an honorable and vital profession, worthy of deep thought and appreciation, not vilification and opportunism.

It took just one week shy of four months for things to return to normal.  10:55 PM on August eleventh, to be precise. I realized I was tired and that it was time for bed, but this night it hit me, like it hasn’t hit me since April seventh.

I was bored.

In the time right after my heart bypass surgery to sometime recently, I had no time or inclination for boredom.  I’d almost died, and after I came out of the experience still alive, I was so grateful for everything. I experienced a heightened sense of awareness, an awareness of how beautiful and miraculous each moment of every day is.

I knew it couldn’t last. I knew that someday I’d return to the same old routines, and get lost again in the day to day. It’s always been inevitable. But it seems too soon.

As the incisions in my chest and legs heal, the memories of the experience start to fade. Now when I recall events, there is a distance to them.  The details of my hospital room, of what it felt like to have a drainage hose installed in the bottom of my chest, of how difficult it was to move the bubble in the breathing apparatus I was measured against, the faces of the nurses who looked after me. They’re all fading, faster than I thought they would.

It’s not that I want to dwell on things. I’m eager to get on with the rest of my life. This is precisely the problem. If my memories are being extinguished so quickly, how can I learn from them? How can I avoid making the same mistakes? Most importantly, how can I put the dark glasses of indifference on again when so much was revealed to me? How can I face death without the appreciation of the miracle that living is?

Death is a powerful and intimate force. In its presence, in those moments when it’s close to us, when we can feel the grip of its icy fingers on our shoulders, defenses kick in and we become simultaneously aware of life’s frailty and strength. The morning before my surgery, after my stress test, when I was in ICU, my heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it was going to burst through my chest, and it beat so fast that I knew it couldn’t maintain such a pace for much longer. It was life, it was MY life I felt hammering in my chest, and if it gave out and stopped, so too would I stop, and with me the world would end. Everything I’ve ever known or felt or been, it was all one instance from being obliterated.

And that’s the thing – as brutally imposing and intimidating a force as death is, life, with its ability to look death in the eye and shrug off its threats and become bored and self-absorbed, is every bit death’s match.

The challenge is to balance life’s treasures against death’s inevitability. We need to listen to what they, life and death, are trying to tell us.  Boredom is life’s way of countering the fear of death, of minimizing death’s impact, of mitigating the fact that in the end, death will triumph. Boredom is life flipping a middle finger at death.

In the end, there is one force stronger than either life or death.  Time makes chumps of them both. And, I guess that neither life nor death would really give a crap about boredom if it weren’t for time.

I’ve got music playing, and suddenly I hear it, Chrissie Hynde singing “Back on the Chain Gang:” 

But I’ll die as I stand here today, / knowing that deep in my heart / they’ll fall to ruin one day / for making us part

When Chrissie Hynde sings, even life, death and time are compelled to stop and listen.

Today I “graduated” from Cardiopulmonary Rehab at the rehab center in Kenosha Memorial Hospital.  My photo was taken and a diploma was presented to me.  Make no mistake about it, I am very proud of this accomplishment. I met all of the targets the staff laid out for me, I worked hard, and I’ve come a long way from where I was when I began on April14th, just a week after bypass surgery.

I have an appointment with my regular doctor on Monday, and I’m eager to find out where all of my cholesterol numbers are at.  I know that my weight is down almost twenty pounds.

I recognize these accomplishments for what they really are: milestones passed on the road to recovery.  I’ll know I’ve gotten to where I want to go when my changed habits become permanent routine. I know I’m not there yet, and that is why I signed up for another six months of membership at the Kenosha facility.  I’ll have access to the same equipment and personnel that I’ve been working with.  I start “phase two,” the prevention program, on Friday.  No rest for the wicked.

I’d like to thank all the therapists at the rehab center, particularly Cheryl, who mapped my progress and made sure I understood the whys behind the whats I was asked to do.  I’ve become embarrassingly bad with names and I apologize for not remembering all of yours, but I am so grateful to all of the therapists for your kindness, your patience, and your dedication. Your work is so important, it shapes and changes lives for the better.  Know that it has had a profound effect on me, and that you are one of the best parts of this second chance I’m so grateful for having been given.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K35PUYZJSw

It’s a subject we write about all the time.  Especially fiction. Good fiction always has to have something valuable at stake – and what’s more valuable than life itself?  But what do we really know about death, other than eventually it takes us all?

The thing about death is the older we grow the nearer we get to it. Also, the older we get, the more familiar it becomes, as we experience it through the deaths of friends and family as well as public figures and acquaintances.

We, the living, all look for meaning when somebody dies. Some look for cosmic meaning – where will the deceased end up, is there an afterlife and what does it all mean.  But I think most of us look at the story a given lifetime tells, and like any story, we want to learn from it. Was the life worth living, was it lived well? Did it touch other lives? How was the world changed by its existence? What obstacles was he able to overcome?  Unable to?

Stories are so important to human beings because when you come right down to it they all deal with our awareness of our own mortality. Stories, like a life, have a beginning, middle and end. If we weren’t aware of the inevitability of our own death, stories wouldn’t be so important. People live on in stories after their death – Grandpa used to get up at 4:30 every morning to start the milking, he sure was a hard worker is another way of saying grandpa’s life wasn’t meaningless, and as long as we remember him, he lives on, at least in our memories, like the drawings of hunts on cave walls still tell the stories of our prehistoric ancestors.

So recently, after experiencing chest pains and having emergency heart bypass surgery, the nearest to my own death I’ve been so far, what was the first thing I did when I started recovery? I started working on stories, figuring out what I’d tell people about my experiences, about the anxiety I felt, about the pain, the doctors, the nurses, the pain pills and the hallucinations I experienced under their control, everything.  This is a big deal, I told myself, I could have died. Everybody will want to hear about this.

But now, almost two months later, the experience is already in my rear view mirror and fading. I’ve made changes to my diet and lifestyle that will be permanent, but otherwise, my life has returned to a normalcy and comfort that doesn’t feel much different than before.  And it’s happened much quicker than I thought it would.

Last Friday, a member of the writers group I belong to, a woman named Marguerite McClelland, passed away. I didn’t know her all that well, just what she’d shared with us in her writing.  She was seventy one years old, having been born in the Alsace region on the France-Germany border in 1943, at the epicenter and the height of World War Two.  She never knew her father, who was a casualty of the war.

I know these things about her because of memoirs and poems she’d written and shared. Stories of her life.  Stories that will live on now even though she won’t. Marguerite’s stories will live longer than most because they are so well written, the language is so evocative and beautiful.

It’s estimated that each hour, 6,390 people die.  That’s 153,000 per day, and 56 million per year.  It’s estimated that 107 billion people have lived in the history of the earth, and that 100 billion of them have already died.  Think of the people you’ve know who have died. Maybe there’s fifty people, one hundred if you count famous dead celebrities you’re familiar with. That leaves 99,999,999,900 dead people who you know nothing about.

But each of those 100 billion lives that have begun and ended had their own unique stories and left their own indelible mark on the world. Every life, no matter how short or seemingly inconsequential, impacts other lives, in ways known and unknown.

And when a beautiful soul like Marguerite passes, we who were lucky enough to have known her even for a short time are stronger for the story she told.