Okay, Okay, I’m late.
Happy New Year.
Here we are in 2026. Big Deal! So What?
I’ve been trying to actively ignore the news. I was doing a pretty good job of it.
Then I went to get a massage in Palm Springs and was listening to the radio on the way out there.
It’s a good thing that I was getting a massage!! I’d hoped that for at least the first few weeks, the world would tone the crazy down. Uhhh, Nope!
The Somali Fraud continues, and is beyond breathtaking.
We’ve captured Venezuela’s president. Some politicians want to call it a war, if so 90 minutes seems very short.
Then a woman interferes with legal operations in MN. According to one side, she tried to run down an ICE officer and he shot her dumb ass in self defense. According to the other side, she was an innocent mother just trying to get home to her children.
Helpful hint… If you don’t follow ICE around harassing them. If you don’t make a nuisance of yourself. If you accidentally turn down a street where ICE is actively trying to do their job, stop… ask an officer for the best way to exit the area and then do as they instruct. Then guess what? You’re probably not going to get shot!
What part of this didn’t this lady understand?
Then we find out that the officer who shot her had in fact been dragged six months ago, he was hospitalized and got 33 stitches. Perhaps, he was a bit twitchy, but she did gun the engine, and she did in fact hit the guy.
Then people tried saying that he shouldn’t have been standing in front of her vehicle. Okay… Does that same rule apply to protestors standing in front of my car? Can I run their dumb asses down?
OH… by the way officers regularly stand in front of cars. They stop you if there’s something going on that they’re trying to protect you from. They stand in front of cars while their partner is checking your ID if you’re trying to get back to your home in a disaster area.
Guess what? Having your ID ready, presenting it when requested, smiling at the officers then following their directions makes the whole process safe, remarkably fast and efficient. I speak from recent experience having just dealt with it after the mudslides near my home.
It seems that a substantial portion of people in this country don’t know the basic rules. During the restricted access to my neighborhood I sat behind a moron who was arguing with CHP for a good 10 minutes demanding access to a disaster area when he didn’t live here and refused to provide ID. He ran the checkpoint!
When the officers waved me forward, I asked the officer checking ID if his partner was okay. I couldn’t tell if he’d been hit or not. The officer asked his partner who responded with a thumbs up. Then I offered the officer my phone number and the license plate number of the guy in front of me. I’d happily have showed up in court to testify about what I witnessed.
He smiled and thanked me. His radio crackled there were some spoken codes then he laughed saying I wouldn’t need to testify, they’d caught the guy at the first turnout. He reminded me to approach the turnout with caution since the officer there was still dealing with the situation, wished me a happy rest of my day, then waved me through.
I’ll admit that I was grinning as I drove past the turnout. The guy was in handcuffs sitting on the cold wet ground next to his front tire.
I thought to myself, it would have been so much easier if the guy had just turned around as he’d been asked to do in the first place. Then I thought about the hassle it would have been if he’d caused an accident on the only road into town.
I keep asking myself what’s wrong with people.
On Sunday, returning from my 3-4 mile walk. A strange car pulled up beside me asking how to get to the snowy mountain I can see from my house.
This kind of thing happens all the time. People don’t want to go to the ski resort & put up with other snow players in the designated areas. The guy driving was polite and asked how to get to that mountain. I stopped for a second and my brain kind of rebooted.
I told him, “These roads all dead end. The mountain is at least another 2 miles from where we were standing and you don’t want to go up there in any case because it’s incredibly dangerous this time of year.”
A woman in the passenger seat said “He’s lying.”
My brain rebooted again. I was thinking, “the mountain in question tops out about 8 thousand feet, maybe a little more. It’s very steep and the snow up there is very unstable. But hey, if they want to hike up there, more power to them we’ll collect their bodies and the bodies of their kids, come springtime. I really didn’t give a crap.”
I’d already turned away. I don’t have time for this kind of bullshit.
The guy told her to shut up.
The guy politely called me back. “Where can we go to play in snow?”
I turned back to him, “You can go back down to Highway 2 then through town. About a mile further on, you’ll see a sign for the ski resort on the left. It’s been cold enough at night that they’ve been making snow. There’s a large parking lot and they maintain the place pretty well so nobody gets hurt on rocks.”
The woman was still giving me the stink eye, but he thanked me.
I kept on walking up the mountain. Jesse was impatient to get home.
The last quarter mile, I was thinking, “Why would she assume I was lying, much less say it?” Again I was wondering what the hell is wrong with people? Just a few days ago, that kid fell and died up on Mt Baldy?
ICE is surging in MN and they’re meeting more protests. Today it looks like ICE is being liberal with mace and teargas. I’m good with that.
When I ask, “what’s wrong with people?” It’s not rhetorical. I really do not understand. Am I so different from other people? Do I operate on a completely different set of rules?