Resist

How can one resist commenting on the next act in the ten-ring circus in Washington? Why pretend that life is normal? My current American heroes are those who are both informing me and putting things into perspective with the necessary dash of humor: Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Bill Maher, Samantha Bee and more. (Of course, some of the above are immigrants—can we still call them Americans?)

Let’s just take three things:

1)    The Turkish President brings his own goon squad to American soil to beat up protestors in Washington exercising their right to assemble in peaceful protest. Barely a comment in mainstream news.

2)    Trump fires the guy investigating him, the same guy who got him elected by going after Hillary on a false charge. His press dummies say one thing about why, he says another and no one is held accountable.

3)    Sean Spicer is so overwhelmed by trying to find the lie-du-jour that when he sees reporters, he hides in the bushes. And then slightly embarrassed, the Republican Propaganda Team makes the Washington Post to soften it by saying he was “among” the bushes.

And to make matters worse, he turned up on my block. I saw him this morning and tried to talk to him, but he ran into Golden Gate Park, where there are more numerous and more bushy bushes.

So Ringley Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus closed recently, probably because the competition with the Freak Show in Washington was too great. That’s the world we’re in. Not only is it hard to resist getting caught up in the daily clown act, it’s absolutely necessary to resist all this as the new definition of normal.

So here’s today’s Dictionary lesson on the word “resist.”

1) Stand against; to withstand; to obstruct.

2. To strive against; to endeavor to counteract, defeat, or frustrate; to act in opposition to; to oppose.

3. To counteract, as a force, by inertia or reaction.

4. To be distasteful to.

5. To make opposition.

6. A substance used to prevent a color or mordant from fixing on those parts to which it has been applied, either by acting mechanically in preventing the color, etc., from reaching the cloth, or chemically in changing the color so as to render it incapable of fixing itself in the fibers. The pastes prepared for this purpose are called resist pastes.

I love this last definition. Citizens, our mission is to render these folks incapable of fixing their greedy, ugly, mean-spirited, downright evil colors into the fiber of democracy.

Let’s keep at it. And watch the bushes in your neighborhood.