I CanNOT Understand This

A bitmoji cartoon of a brunette-with-grey
woman dressed in blue pinching her nose
with incipient headache.

Yes, today's topic is the same old same old.

Again.

Or at least a variation on a theme.

Immediately after the shooting death of Charlie Kirk, the usual suspects (in this case, primarily the man sitting in the White House and the inner circle of his fan club) started saying that the <spins wheel> "transgender libt*rd antifa" was the cause. Dogwhistle terms were flying fast and furious, "the demon-rats" were being called domestic terrorists, and the larger fan club started threatening historically black universities. Because that makes sense to them, I guess.

Less than 48 hours later, we find out that no, he was a Good Mormon Boy. None of these people has retracted their statements. Some are doubling down by either doing "la la la I can't hear you" with their fingers in their ears, or by outright fabricating statements that 90% of mass shooters are from the "party that wants to take my guns."

I can only assume that this makes sense to them, too.

Look, I'm not sorry that Chirlie Kirk is no longer on this earth, but I'm not glad about it either. I am sorry (in spite of the massive irony of a superficially civil gun nut being shot in public) that it happened this way, partly because of those people described up there. And partly because in my country's twisted love affair with guns, this somehow justifies more guns. I don't believe in the death penalty; I think it's barbaric. But I do believe that actions have consequences, whether you call it Karma or something else. 

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows," (Galatians 6:7) is another way to put it, and that one is repeated several times in other ways in the same holy book that CK and all those folks up there in that earlier paragraph purport to believe.

I do know several reasonable Christians (a family member or two, a few friends both online and off-) who try their best to actually follow Christ's teachings instead of the weirdly ass-backwards Christian-Nationalist version. I treasure these people. They are, however, as a group, neither powerful nor loud enough to drown out the bullshit giving them a bad name.

The other groups I do not grok are those whose faces are likely to be eaten by leopards at any moment, but don't think they will be the victims of the face-eating-leopards party. MAGA people of color, MAGA LGBTQ+, MAGA immigrants, etc. Oh, honey, they hate you too. They just hate you slightly less than their current scapegoats. Don't worry; they will eventually get around to eating your face too, if you're a good sycophant and lackey.

Other shootings - those of more than just one MAGA media darling - happened this week, too, but we don't hear nearly as much about those, of course. The Epstein files are still out there as well, and CKs death has served as a handy distraction from that. I have heard some people say that it was deliberate for that purpose. Whether or not that is true, it's still a distraction. Weirdly, some of these same MAGA folks seem to think that, "What if <insert democrat> person is on the list? Huh, bet you never thought of that!" is some kind of gotcha, but honestly, if there is (and I can certainly think of a few who might be) then they should go down too.

I'm finding this timeline to be very stressful, in spite of my self-induced social media restrictions.

Ridiculous

EDIT: this Social Security issue worked itself out the day before the cut off. It sure would’ve been great if they had let me know in the interim that things were in process, but at least it’s OK now.

I'm still only on social media for around an hour a day (for me, that means Meta for the most part; I tend to use YouTube for DIY or game hints or a handful of cutesy things I follow, not news, and TikTok only when my kids send me something). So I'm on enough, and reading electronic newspapers and so forth, to know what's going on in the world, while still protecting my own psyche.

Reading Agatha Christie's thrillers (as opposed to her mysteries; the thrillers are all very International Intrigue) has convinced me that either a) nothing changes, or b) the woman had the gift of prophecy, because there's a lot of Rise of Fascism stuff there. 

But even with All That Out There™, life has to go on. Bills have to be paid, kids must go to school, laundry must be folded... you get what I mean.

So, about those things. 

• Bills paid up-to-date, but I didn't work at the district during the summer, so I have no end-of-August paycheck. 
• A benefit we receive from our state may have been lost in the mail. We're on Day 11 of the 7-10 business days, and the phone rep says if I haven't gotten it by Friday to let them know and they'll issue another.
• I've done all the paperwork, jumped through all the hoops, and tried calling 3-4 times a week all summer to get Lizzy's survivor benefits extended to when she graduates high school next June. I tried again today but now they won't let me represent her. She's not 18 yet, but she will be this month, so I guess that the SSA considers her to be close enough. That means that we don't know whether we will be getting a direct deposit (to my account) as we have been, or whether it will be a paper check, and we still don't know whether it will continue through June.
• We are ready for school! Lizzy has an outfit picked out for school tomorrow, Abby is getting her stuff together for her senior year of college, and I have at least my morning route tomorrow!
• The new washer/dryer we got from the power company (it was a great deal intended to assist with power efficiency is terrific. Small, and a little finicky (I have to vacuum the lint traps to get them clear enough to do another load), but as long as I'm on top of it, they work great!

So, yeah, 2025 Life sucks. My personal 2025 life has a lot of headaches and (as always) financial woes, but it's pretty balanced out.