I felt happy, and also guilty, about feeling happy hearing the latest Titanic burial ground news. I even found it amusing, wondering if the Titanic was cursed. Kind of like why those who die when working on some chamber that a pharaoh is buried in. Are there dire warning etched on the ship like those chambers?
    Yes, I know I had sunk to a similar great depth. I know how terrible my personal sense of schadenfreude was. I know I shouldn’t feel that way. Instead I should be typing, “Those poor people!” Yet I can’t help it. I even wonder, as bad as it must be, if they’re still alive, if they are thankful they’re not exposed to one more day, one more hour, one more microsecond of…
    ”I have every right to…”
    ”He’s the best…” (Switch to) “He’s a coward…”
    Flip to…
    ”He’s a traitor.” “Here’s what he said…” (today, yesterday) If the media and his opponents could they’d bug his pillow just to record what he murmurs in his sleep, and to be fair if he could he would do it to them.
    I realize we keep getting snapped back to a somewhat, slightly different, version of Groundhog Day Donnie that never ends. Maybe that’s the purpose behind this unfunny shtick…
    IT NEVER ENDS.
    Look, I’m beyond blaming just him, just the Republicans, just the Democrats, the rather vague villain framed as “THE DEEP STATE.” What’s going on now SEEMS so ahistorical I’m even somewhat beyond blaming that “evil” media everyone is so fond of blaming. Plus, without the media wouldn’t we have just one side or the other ruling the narrative with little to few questions? Less exposed for who they really are? Besides, the media, is business. Profit doth matter.
    Still, every news day I imagine some who lived through the worst of the French Revolution must have felt somewhat like I do. Knowing, once again, where it’s all… head-ed.
    I desperately wonder…
    What, is Ukraine nothing but pretty posies now? COVID mutated into a miracle cure for cancer? The economy neither nose diving nor flying high like some proud patriotic eagle? Look! Up in the sky! Independence Day aliens with death rays! What, even they don’t want to hang around? Can’t blame them, I suppose.
    Then, every once in a while, something schadenfreude like those poor people in that sub reaches out to give me relief and…
    That damn alarm goes off again.
    ”It was a perfect call.”
    ”I have every right.”
    ”He’s an idiot”
    ”He keeps sabotaging himself.”
    Yell, scream, holler, excuse, try to distract, “but what about…” isms, LOOK OVER THERE! (Instead.)
    On and on it goes. Seems so long ago when briefly I was grateful. It was less who won than the quiet. No matter what anyone thinks of Biden at least the incessant, inane chatter via framing, reframing, name calling, slowed down a tad. Oh, SO brief. Yeah, one more old guy who could be framed as “doddering,” “mixed up,” “confused…” whatever. But I found that somewhat soothing. So I was lulled into a state of somnolence, back into routines, enjoying the new/old beauty that surrounds me all year long after our big move last year.
    Then the damn alarm goes off again.
    ”Okay, campers, rise and shine, you’re going to need better earplugs, ’cause it’s Groundhog Day Donnie time again!”

                                      -30-

    “Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
©Copyright 2023
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions.
All Rights Reserved.