They seem to be everywhere right now:  in my life, in the country’s life, in that of the entire planet.

Apologies to all who’ve visited over the last two or three weeks.  After my father’s death, of course, I had to do the things that attend a death in today’s society:  beginning the task of sorting through his belongings; writing his obituary; picking up his ashes from the funeral home; fulfiling certain traditional obligations.  In the middle of all of this (unsurprisingly, I suppose), my autoimmune disease decided that it was time for an exacerbation, which has turned out to be the worst one I’ve had in recent memory.  Life ground to a halt.

I’m slowly (but surely, I think) on the mend - in part because I’m now at Home #2, and getting a little R-and-R.  The shot above was taken from the deck here the day after Dad’s death, but we’ve gotten the same wave of storms every day since, including a spectacular lightning show last night.   Unfortunately, it’s haying season, and this puts me in a position I don’t think I’ve ever occupied before:  praying for no rain.  In a desert climate like this, you learn not to argue with rain whenever or however it wants to make an appearance.  But after a solid month of daily storms (and the loss of the last cut of hay about six weeks ago, again, to too much moisture), I’m literally praying for a three- or four-day window of bone-dry weather.

It seems like a metaphor for our times, with storm clouds amassed in every direction, and drenching us on a daily basis.  We were talking this morning over coffee about the FISA fiasco - neither of us thinks that we’re going to get our country back absent a major societal upheaval.  Once our "leaders" give away our most fundamental rights, it’s nearly impossible to get them back.  I mean, does anyone really think that Hillary, if she wins, is going to give back the FISA expansion - or the gutting of habeas corpus, or any of the myriad other thefts of constitutional protections that this pack of criminals has wrought?  (Or any of the other candidates, for that matter?)

I didn’t think so. 

So while I’m happy to be feeling a little better personally, I increasingly despair for my country.  Strike that - for the world.  Because what our "leaders" do in our name affects the entire planet.

Which is another reason I continue to insist that impeachment, trial, and conviction are the moral imperatives of our time.  Our obligations now go far beyond the U.S. - certainly beyond parochial worries about keeping certain Democrats in office.  We now owe the world an enormous moral debt - one whose tally climbs every hour.  And we can only begin to repay the smallest, most superficial part of that debt once we take these first necessary legal steps.  It’s how we show the world that we recognize the tragedy and obscenity of what this nation has wrought - and it’s the precondition to regaining the tiniest, most fundamental bit of moral authority as a nation.

[Sigh . . . .]  You’re right.  I’m not holding out hope, either.