Thinking about thoughts
Remembering some memories, and reflecting on reflections
I knew I was scheduled to write on Thursday this week, because last week I wrote on Wednesday, so…duh. Of course this week is a Thursday Thoughts post.
What I did not realize at the time was that the day I was scheduled to write is also 9/11. And that realization takes my thoughts down a different path.
I mean, how does 9/11 pass without some remembering and reflection?
I’ll never forget that dark day 24 years ago. And I’ve written about it here before. I still remember all of those things, so I won’t do another accounting of them today. But I will talk about the dominant thought I’m feeling on the topic now, as I think about the survivors—the people who have had to live under the weight of this act of terrorism every day for 24 years.
If the online date calculator that I used is to be believed, that’s:
8766 days they’ve had to muscle through.
210,384 hours wondering what might have been.
12,623,040 minutes of life that their loved ones didn’t get to live.
757,382,400 seconds of knowing that it didn’t have to be like this.
To them I say this:
You. Are. Heroes.
As much as we on the fringes feel it, we feel it only fractionally. Survivors of the September 11 terrorist attacks—witnesses; first responders; friends and loved ones of those injured, sickened, or killed; children who never knew their parents…they are heroes, one and all, plain and simple. They carry something seemingly uncarry-able.
You know how sometimes we use an iceberg to illustrate that what we see is very different from what lies below the surface? This tragedy is—as all tragedies are—an iceberg. We see a tiny bit of it, but there’s exponentially more that we don’t see than we do. But for survivors, they are forced to carry the iceberg. And so many of them do it with grace. With honor. By honoring. For those of us who weren’t directly touched by this, life goes on, intact. But for those who were impacted—life goes on, but never the same again. We can’t ever forget that. Or them.
I plan to head up to King Oak Hill Park later today to see the annual memorial installation and am grateful to live in a town that honors this day, these heroes. I like to spend a quiet moment by the twisted beam, under the flag, remembering all the heroes among us, thanking those who were sacrificed, and wishing comfort and peace to all.
That said, yesterday when I went through the park as part of my normal route, the installation was staged but under cover. and as I passed by I found myself thinking about the almost 3000 people who died that day. What where they doing 24 years ago? How did they spend their final day, their final hours, not knowing that it was their last chance to do any of it?
Question for you: if you knew it was your last day on earth, what would you do differently? My advice—do that anyway. And if you’re not sure, throw this song on and give it a think:
Lastly, for some people, September 11 has other significance—a birth, a wedding, or some other notable occasion. If you’re one of them, I hope that this horrific event does not rob you of your joy. Joy and pain can coexist, and that fact is crystal clear today.
Anyhow, in the five weeks since I’ve written on a Thursday, I have plenty of other thoughts too, so let’s move on:
I need to start this list part of things on a very serious note—yesterday’s shooting of Charlie Kirk. It is unthinkable. Unconscionable. And the irony of it happening while he was answering a question about mass shootings makes it that much more…words fail me…of a mindf-ck. Is that the right word? I was hopeful that a decent night’s sleep would help me come at this clearly this morning, but since I woke up I have been thinking straight about it…but writing in circles. Thinking straight as in “I know exactly what I think” and writing in circles as in “in such a hyper politically charged environment, I’m not sure how best to say it.” So I spewed my thoughts, wrote the rest of it, and now am looping back to (try to) organize my thoughts on the matter before I finish this up. There will be no discussion of the shooting in the audio accompaniment because I am waaaaaay too wound up for that. And thank God for the numbered outline format—it’ll help me break up and organize my rambling thoughts to make them easier for both of us to understand. Maybe. Hopefully.
Let’s get my overarching sentiment out of the way first, and with utmost clarity. I do not think anyone deserves to be shot for their political beliefs. Or race or gender or whatever. So it follows naturally (transitive property?) that I firmly believe that Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be shot…he did not deserve to die. I disavow and abhor this kind of violence. But at the same time, sadly, I understand it. I don’t agree with what is happening in the world, but I can’t honestly say it shocks me that this is a surprising outcome given all the inputs in the world today.
This situation is highlighting in the brightest of yellow why sticking to facts is critical and why following rhetoric and righteousness is deadly (literally). I believe that following facts is the lone path to saving our nation.
Charlie Kirk was not the great all-American guy that the media and the masses are making him out to be. “They” are saying Charlie Kirk did nothing but travel the country, welcoming debate. But if you follow along with what he said, it was more like he enjoyed engaging with people to either inflame or belittle. If people agreed with him, he stoked the flames, and if they disagreed, he scoffed and belittled. He lived for the mic-drop moment. He was racist and chauvinistic.
If you like the ideas of oppression and white male domination and keeping women in the kitchen, you like Charlie Kirk.
For example, he advocated for the return of the “MRS” degree, saying that going to an SEC school to find a good husband is a solid reason to go to college.
He belittled pro-choice women, saying, “Maybe you can help me understand why the women of America are so enthusiastic about the right to be able to kill pre-born babies.” and went on to say that women wanting to make their own choices about their own bodies is narcissism.
He also said something to the effect that certain people “used” affirmative action because they didn’t have the needed “brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.” And then accused them of stealing a white person’s slot. (I’m not kidding.)
Plenty more examples of his “platform” are out there. Educate yourself and then decide for yourself. Now is not the time to get caught up in the mob mentality of party lines.
If inclusivity and personal agency are your jam, well, you found his words despicable and divisive. I don’t condone violence but let’s neither vilify nor canonize him in death. Let’s stick to the facts.
At the same time the Charlie Kirk story was playing out, there was another school shooting, in suburban Denver. Neither shooting is better or worse, more or less tragic.
Kirk himself once said (in 2023), “Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty…we need to be very clear that you're not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment.” And while it would be easy to say—and some people are—that his death is part of that cost, I won’t say it. Nor will I say that his death is “worse” than anyone else’s because he was politically active and liked to debate. And while he did express an interest in reducing gun violence, his words, and his attitude, are part of—and highlight the extent of—the problem.
I’m disgusted by the outrage to his murder relative to the outrage about the murder of, say, kids praying in church. It’s time to stop minimizing and characterizing shootings based on the victims or the shooter or the political party and start treating gun violence as the bipartisan epidemic it is.
Now is not the time for tit for tat, for comparing who did what when, or any empty rhetoric, as if any of it makes any of it ok.
If you’re sick about Charlie being shot for his political views but aren’t sick about people getting killed for no reason, I urge you to rethink your position.
If you are “so angry” but can’t explain why, that’s another thing to explore.
It is awful he was killed…but…and it’s a big BUT. I know. “All” Charlie tried to do was have respectful dialogue (except when he didn’t)…and but all ther other people did was try to pray, grocery shop, see a movie, etc. Charlie Kirk didn’t deserve to die. To some he’s a hero. To others he’s a dick. But the question remains: why is his death any more __________ than anyone else’s?
I am struggling with the national response.
For example, he is being held up as a great patriot, one whose death drops flags to half-staff, yet the killing of Melissa Horstman (and her husband and their dog) was barely a blip on the national tragedy radar screen.
I’m beyond frustrated by the hypocrisy and inconsistency. Charlie Kirk also was a racist who said some awful things. He may have been a Christian, but he was no choir boy.
Our President had a chance to lead. And he has chosen not to. When he spoke, he politicized it. Without knowing who the shooter is or what motivated them, he made it a left v. right issue. He fanned the flames of polarization, saying things like “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.” He deliberately made the divide wider and deeper. This is not a man who gives one hairy rat’s a$$ about making America anything but a haven for sniveling sycophants. Watch, listen, and decide for yourself:
Charlie Kirk’s death in and of itself is a tragedy—but the circumstances surrounding it? That’s a whole other story. It’s nuanced. Complex. Systemic. And those are the things that need to be dealt with.
Somebody needs to step up. At this point, quite frankly, I don’t even care who it is—just that someone does.
Now is the time to set party aside and figure things the f-ck out. We’re causing the problem, we are the problem—so we should be able to solve it. “All” we have to do is want to.
No one should have to go through a single day worrying about being gunned down.
At what point do we say “screw partisan politics,” admit that thoughts and prayers solve nothing, and start doing the hard work?
Slightly-agitated reminder: follow the facts.
Long story short, a lot of people are holding him up as a martyr, and others are saying he got what he deserved. Both are right…and both are wrong.
I repeat: now is not the time for partisan politics. I don’t want to live in this angry, broken, sad country. This is not America.
Speaking of political stuff (though what happened to Charlie Kirk is more of a gun violence issue than it is a political one, or at least that’s how it should be viewed—but we tend to politicize *everything* these days, and even the Governor of Utah called it a political assassination…if anything I’d argue that all gun violence is political, be it politically motivated or because politicians refuse to legislate anything gun-related, because…greed…and hate…and power…but now is not the time to split those hairs), I debated doing this in light of #s 1 and 2, but we have a bigger-than-“just”-guns problem, and we have a petulant president with a history of lying and deflection and distraction. So as sad as Charlie Kirk’s death is, and because I was recently reminded of a post I wrote earlier this year, introducing the land of Eggville and some challenges with egg prices, I can’t hide. It’s probably a good time to give you an update on what’s going on in the land of make believe that is all too real. Last time we left Eggville, Mayor Oliver Omelet had promised to bring egg prices back down to earth. Activist Holly Hatch was out rallying farmhands to take ownership, and inventor Eggbert Einstein was tinkering with a feed-distribution system that no one at City Coop Hall wanted to fund. Since then, the town has only gotten messier. Sheriff Cluck Norris, the law-and-order rooster with a flair for barnyard theatrics and a badge polished shinier than his spurs, was confirmed by a feather and is now is the Mayor’s most loyal enforcer. He blindly ensures that every executive peck gets carried out with maximum bravado and swagger.
Here’s a summary of what’s happened in Eggville since we last checked in (spoiler alert: it is *not* pretty) (trigger warning: lies, broken promises, chauvinism, and all the bad things):
Egg prices. Still scrambled. They plummet like a fallen merengue, offering a short window for a mayoral photo op, then spike higher than a souffle. Mayor Omelet blames “fake yolks” and “crooked hens.” Families struggle, but oh, look, Hillary’s emails.
Financial fiasco. Mayor Omelet launched his family-run Chicktocurrency, and decreed it would be the only valid currency in the land. Now ordinary citizens can barely buy feed, while Mayor Omelet and his family reap the profits, and most of the population clucks in confusion. Yet the Mayor asserts: “It’s good for the flock! Trust me. I am the greatest businessman ever.”
The Eggsecutive Orders have been nonstop (each more absurd than the last):
The Coop Purity Act. Sheriff Cluck Norris personally oversaw the deportation of non-heritage hens. Ducklings are separated from mothers. A goose flock disappeared overnight. Mayor Omelet is calling it “the cleanest coop in Eggville history.”
Right-to-Yolk Decree. Fertilized eggs were granted voting rights. Omelet claims it’s “pro-life, pro-hen, pro-democracy.” Breakfast cooks are now branded criminals.
Henhouse Secrets Act. After inspectors found classified feed reports in his personal nest, Omelet shrugged: “All great roosters do it.” Sheriff Cluck dismissed the raid as a “witch-hatch.”
Golden Nest Fund. Subsidies have been stripped from working hens and redirected to luxury coop upgrades for loyalists—heated straw, gold-plated roosts, even diamond-studded grit. So many chickens duped into thinking they’ll get sloppy seconds. Not a chance.
No Lips, No Straws. First plastic straws were banned, then paper. “You don’t even have lips, why do you need straws?” Omelet asked. Um…because they have no lips, they can drink only from plastic straws. Duh. Everyone knows that. 🤦♀️
Roosters with Rifles Act. Despite barnyard shootouts, Omelet doubled down: “Guns don’t kill chickens; bad eggs do. And only a good rooster with a gun can stop a bad egg with a gun.” It’s reached a point where families are too afraid to send chicks to scratching school.
Book-Banning Bonanza. Anything featuring ducks, turkeys, or diverse barn families has been banned. Chicken Little? “Biggest coward in the history of the world.” Even Charlotte’s Web outlawed for “spider indoctrination.” Meanwhile, the barnyard is burning…
The Great Coop Riot Rewrite. The violent Jan. 6th Henhouse Riot has now been officially rebranded as a “peaceful poultry parade.” Participants were pardoned and given a lifetime’s supply of free eggs. The participant who dies had a hen house renamed in her honor. Sheriff Cluck called them “patriots of the perch.” No matter that many of them have been sent back to the poultry penitentiary for fresh fowl offenses in the months since they were allowed free range.
The Great Barn Raid. When federal egg inspectors tried to check unsafe coops, Cluck Norris and his deputies blocked the doors, crowing “Stop the Steal (Our Eggs)!” The Mayor later said the raid was “the greatest protection of hen rights in history.”
The Never-Ending War and Other Broken Promises. While campaigning, Mayor Omelet repeatedly vowed to end the Great Coop Conflict in 24 hours, as if it were chick’s play. Months later, chickens and roosters are still clucking across disputed fields, crops destroyed, and farmers on edge. Omelet shrugs, declaring, “We’re making tremendous progress, believe me,” while ordinary eggfolk wonder if any promise is worth a yolk—and the involved parties still have not been in the same coop, negotiating a settlement. Hmmm. Representative list of cracked promises:
Egg prices are fluctuating wildly, while other grocery prices are exorbitant (good thing chickens don’t eat beef!)
The war rages on
Rebuilding farms and coops quickly after disasters (delayed indefinitely)
Taxes are still high (and favor golden nests)
Many nests are going hungry
Meanwhile, Mayor Omelet and Press Secretary Kackleline Leavitt’s daily cluckstorms of misinformation, contradictions, name calling, and obfuscation distract from the important issues.
Taxpayer Tab Abuse. Omelet burned public funds on golf outing after golf outing, and other junkets, like a luxury trip to the National Chicken Fight Championship. He was wildly booed (though his favorite news networks edited that out) and after falling asleep, he left early, citing “executive fatigue.” But he still had enough energy to produce an AI-generated movie style poster of himself, which he posted thusly: “Greatest mayor at greatest fight. All hens say so.”
Mayor Omelet at the chicken fight. 📷cred: Microsoft Copilot The Eggstein List. A scandalous ledger surfaced naming dozens of high-ranking roosters in “inappropriate nesting.” The Mayor’s name mysteriously absent. Whispers of “scrubbed coop logs” fill the barnyard. Omelet insists it’s “a total hoax, sad.”
This is no mere eggsistential crisis, and it’s not just about eggs anymore—it’s a full-on barnyard disaster. Now they’ve got deportations, book bans, coverups, barn riots, golden nests, and an Eggstein List of predators haunting the roost. Not to mention no straws. Henfolk are no longer just worrying about eggs. They’ve got much bigger eggs to fry—and a revolution to hatch before the next election.
I mean, they even made a movie about all this.
So stay tuned….
Thanks for Ollie Omelet’s official chicken fight portrait, Microsoft Copilot. The reviews? All mine. 🤣 On a local political note, I was glad that Michelle Wu squashed Josh Kraft in the Boston Mayoral Primary on Tuesday. I don’t live in Boston, so I don’t follow every last little detail and don’t know who the better candidate is. But I am glad to see that even with piles of money he was unable to buy his way to the top of the slate. Now it’s up to them to slug it out between now and November,
In quasi-political news, I almost choked on my water Tuesday night upon reading the news that Oliver North married Fawn Hall—two weeks ago. Here’s a gift article if you want to read all the sordid details, backstory and all. Salacious. I feel like they don’t make political scandal like they used to. It used to be “fun” and now it’s dangerous…deadly even.
While I was hoping to report that I had won the whopping $1.8B lottery. I did not in fact win, and that’s ok. I mean, two people won and who wants to share that? Oh, who am I kidding? I’d take $900,000 let alone $900M. Or $90K. I’m easy. 🤣 But if I did win, I would not quit my non-paying job. I’d still be here. That said, scanning the tickets in the Mass Lottery app to check is a heart-stopping moment, every time.
Speaking of technology, which can be a real pain in the a$$ at times, another great app is the Roku app. When I’m out having a quiet morning with the news and a cup of coffee and the neighbor’s landscaper shows up, I am able to leverage our cockamamie tech setup and get the TV sound playing through my noise-cancelling headphones, almost instantly restoring my peace. And relative quiet.
Speaking of TV, is it just me or are Michael Keaton and Young Sheldon separated at birth?
Sticking with TV, I really enjoyed watching the US Open. That Carlos Alcaraz is so cute. And I’m glad he beat Jannik Sinner the Sinner, aka the cheater. Good things happen for good people. PEDs, not for me. I’m a Bostonian. I run on Dunkin.
Speaking of sports, the Red Sox are on a surge such that it’s keeping me up watching West Coast games…early in the week. Tuesday night was a great one. Rookie Connelly Early pitched his first game in the bigs, his family was in the stands and going crazy, he tied a Sox record for strikeouts in a debut appearance (recording 11 Ks), and he left after five innings, up 5-0, ultimately recording the W (final score of 6-0). God I love baseball.
Following up on my morning routine (#5 above), every Thomas’ English muffins package features the words “easy-to-split.” Does anyone know the secret to actually splitting them easily? Because I end up with three bites’ worth of crumbs whenever I slaughter mine.
Speaking of things that I eat or drink in the morning, I’ll give the Yeti line of drinkware this—it keeps stuff hot. So much so that if I want to drink my coffee out of my camp mug at 7AM, I should probably pour it at 4AM. Either that or stop drinking it black. [Insert burned tongue here.]
Speaking of food, the other day I went to Trader Joe’s and the cashier looked like she could have come from or was going to audition for the part of a 1980s Texas grandmother or mother, and I could picture her saying “I’m not old enough to be the mee-maw, but I’ll take whatever part I can get.” Anyhow she had this strange but hypnotizing two-items-per -hand, two-handed style of ringing items up…and not once did she need to void one extra out added by error or re-scan something she missed. I honestly don’t know how she did it. So I complimented her on it, naturally, and she said, “Well thank you honey but I do get that all the time.” Dying! 🤣
Speaking of Trader Joe’s, I don’t know what their busiest time is, but I do know I will never be going back in the middle of the day on a Monday. The only thing that made it worth it was getting that cashier mentioned in #7 above.
Speaking of food, in January, I exhorted you to plan the damn brunch already. This week, we planned the damn brunch, for the beginning of October. We’re hosting, because I *love* hosting brunch, so much, and the bonus about having it here is we don’t have to deal with any restaurant issues—bad service, overpricing, loud music, no music, bad music, etc. This approach allows people to come and go as the please, make themselves comfortable, hel themselves. I mention it here, because if you haven’t yet planned the proverbial brunch yet, it is very overdue. So find time today to make a plan to spend time with someone you miss or care about or simply enjoy being in the presence of.
On the subject of shopping (#s11 and 12), we recently needed laundry detergent and went with the Spring Meadow scent Tide Pods to shake things up. I wasn’t sure how the scent would fly with my hyper-sensitive olfactory system, but it’s quite nice. That said, the other day when I was walking a woman and I passed each other, and I got a strong whiff of her super clean and fresh laundry scent. And I wonder whether she thought the same about me with my new detergent or whether I just smelled like sweat.
Another walk-related one (this isn’t called The Pedestrian Pundit for nothing) is this paint job. And whatever the town paid for it, it was too much. Even if it was free. But if I ever see an oblong-wheeled bike rider ot a footless pedestrian, I know where to send them.
Speaking of walking, kind of, my social feed is suddenly full of videos touting "the air walk dance made easy.” I had never heard of the air walk but now I have tried following the easy videos many times, and let’s just say I’m glad I’ve not been hospitalized. Air walk? More like “Cement Shoes Shuffle.” Bring back the old haircut videos that I was inundated with for a while—those triggered a real soothing ASMR response in me, kept me feeling safe. 🤣🤣🤣
One more thing about my walks is one thing that makes the end of summer slightly less unpalatable—when I walk on Trash Day my whole route doesn’t smell like I live in the Land of Decomposing Bodies. So there’s that.
Speaking of summer ending, I am still holding on tight. But when I sit outside in the mornings and evenings, I need to bundle up/use the space heater. Inside the AC units are off. Doors and windows are open for fresh air and the temps in the house are dropping—which does bode well for sleeping if nothing else. Hang on though I might, the end is nigh.
My outdoor companion. Wards off the chill and gives me many more outdoor hours.
And speaking of things ending, let’s end my stream of consciousness here—I need coffee and enough is enough. Thanks for coming along for the ride—your attention, support, and company mean the world to me.
Love you too.
And for this week’s habit, blah blah blah. I’m kidding. What I talk about is either more commentary on what I wrote or totally new stuff, so if you’re the least bit interested what else I might have to say, have a listen: