The Manchurian Newscaster

I think winter has come. I’m not sure I mean that in a seasonal way, or a “Game Of Thrones” way.

The waterline has officially frozen from the pond and the lines have been drained. If my little bay was a snow globe, someone has definitely shaken it. I made friends with an ermine when he was still brown.

He’s white now and all I have to do to see him is walk out on the porch and call him. “Herman? Herman?” He stays pretty close and I’m happy to have him for a neighbor. He kills shrews and other tiny rodents that induce phobia. My hero, Herman.

There’s only so long I can try to focus on the space between snowflakes falling before I remember the swamp draining in Washington, D.C., seems to only be to making it more hospitable for the Zika virus. “A racist, a bigot and a misogynist walk into a…” should be the start of a bad joke. It’s not. It’s the start of a new administration.

I had a radio caller once who claimed the Sandy Hook shooting was done by a “Manchurian Candidate” of Obama’s to help him win the election. I thought that was an interesting theory, but suggested it couldn’t be possible since Obama had won the election in November and the shooting happened in December. His response was, “That’s just your opinion.”

Apparently, I can control the calendar with my opinion. This week, the president-elect called and thanked radio hate peddler Alex Jones for his help, promising to come on his program. Jones doubled down on his previous claims the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged hoax.

I don’t remember a time of such unsettled feelings on a national level. I may not be as old as you, but I know four assassinations in five years, including a president, his brother, and civil rights leaders, was enough to drive one generation of progressives into a collective social coma. I’m wondering how we stay currently engaged without the aid of a defibrillator.

I’ve been brewing a theory about how our brains work with information for years. It all started about 20 years ago while measuring drapes with my friend Becky. She said our brains were changing to adapt to the constant barrage of information that we couldn’t do anything about.

I keep thinking about that. The bad news I heard about when I was a kid — outside of the Vietnam War and Iran hostage situation — was usually something our community could handle. A house would burn and we’d contribute our extra stuff, and folks would show up to rebuild. If someone was sick there was a pie auction or spaghetti feed at the fire hall. Even when a fisherman drowned, we all showed up together to grieve.

Technology has given us access to the pain of the planet with no ready solution. More information hasn’t made us a tighter-tuned group of consumers, it’s made us tune out. The last year, the country has supped on “fake news” like it’s our last supper. Maybe it is.

I’ve decided after some consideration and conversation with Herman to take a different tack. See, Herman isn’t worried about the bears that come by to check out the sauna or the wolf that tried to snag a chicken out of the boat shop. He’s fierce — but mostly regarding targets he can manage.

I’m not saying the draining swamp and future fascist petri dish isn’t worth our time and effort, but I need some wins.

Here’s what I want to win. Your list will be different. But make one as random as you like. I want my friend Bill to win his fight against stage 4 cancer.

I want the 52-year-old Wasilla man, Robert Klima, who called the Anchorage Planned Parenthood to say there was a rocket-propelled grenade aimed at the building and stated, “I can and will put a bullet right through their forehead and go ahead and have coffee afterwards,” to be charged with threat of terrorism. I want the people who work there to know they are appreciated by our community.

I want the governor to heal soon from his prostate cancer. I want the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly to stop wasting time on who prays before their meetings and actually get to work. I want the phrase “working white” to be replaced with “poor white” because being poor isn’t about who is good or bad — it’s about being paid for your labor. I want a mock-free green-bean casserole on Thursday.

Oh, and I want you and yours to have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Let’s enjoy it because we’ve got work to do.

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