DoY 238

 Who is us?

Ah, Pogo!  Who *is* us?

Us is a beautiful people admiring our own naivete.  Us is a people admiring our own gentleness while we hurl grenades and fire machine guns.  Us is a people smug about having abolished slavery in 1865 while hosting an estimated 417,500 slaves in 2021, 80% of them women and children.  ("If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.")  Us is a people who refuse to learn science or logic, too hard, besides we got "makes sense" and "works for me!"  Us is a nice people, us is!  Mostly!  Us just needs laws against rape and murder and tormenting each other, and occasionally, us even has to enforce them.  Darn.  Us is what's left after evolution tried a lot of experiments, so us is the cream of the crop, right?  Us is the best?  All these characteristics is how us got here, and how us is gonna stay, isn't us?

DoY 231

Who is us?

Lord have mercy!  Us is an occupying army who does nothing but spend money to "win the hearts and minds" of the people us is trampling on.  Us is a country who, when attacked by 19 Saudis, attacks Afghanistan.  Us is a country who spends gobs of money to build luxurious mud structures, then looks around expecting applause and appreciation.  Us is a county who grabs her skirts and vamooses and points back at the people us deserted and says "See?  Them?  They're the ones!  They never...."  (Fill in the blank.). Us is...well, I can't think of anything else polite to say.  Us is impolite.

The sad, sad, sad, sad, sad thing is we could have known better.  Alexander the Great couldn't conquer Afghanistan, and no one has since.  And we call them backward.  Sigh.

I would like to think the denizens of WDC are avoiding mirrors, but somehow I doubt that too.

DoY 224

Who is us?

Oh, for heaven's sake!  Besides tonight's, I have twenty more of these to do this year!  Have I already exhausted my material?  Maybe not.

Who *is* us?  Us is Joe Biden lost in a word he can almost remember, or perhaps almost knows.  Us is a newscaster on MSNBC getting lost in a sentence and saying not when he or she means the opposite.  Us is a normal Amurrican using an idiom that doesn't quite mean right and becoming an idiot.  Us is a poet preaching.  Us is a politician promoting a needless war - oh, wait, is that a redundancy?  Us is us describing our country without a fact or truth in the description.  Us is not replacing a thermostat because it costs less to just walk over and turn the A/C or heater off and on manually - or because the replacement wouldn't work any better than the current defective one.  Us is the designers and non-testers of thermostats.

 

DoY 217

 Who is us?

Who *is* us?  Us - by our own assertions and doings - is a good people, generous, kind, thoughtful, brave, resilient, artistic, even outstanding.  But also by our own doings that we try to hide, us is mean, petty, stingy, cruel, thoughtless, cowardly, wilting, dull, and commonplace.  Most days we don't do much to show the universe, "See?  We were here!  We made a difference!  We mattered!"  If the universe notices us, its glance travels on, still looking for a reminder of why it bothered.