Are You Tired Yet?

We are less than two weeks into the reign of Trump the Orange. How are you holding up? I'm pretty much exhausted. This is a quick, off the-top-of-my-head list of the things that are causing me to wake up 2 or 3 times a night.

• Will I be able to keep my wife on health insurance in the future, and if I can't, how do I keep her alive?
• Does the Federal hiring freeze mean my son's dreams of a career in the National Park Service are fucked?
• Why do so many Americans hate immigrants? Unless your family name is Great Elk or something similar there is a damn good chance that your family came from somewhere else.
• How the hell did we get a Leninist whose stated goal is to destroy America running the country?
• Will the Republicans pull their heads out of their asses before Bannon has effectively neutered them?
• How long will it take Trump to effectively negate the Bill of Rights? He's pretty much got Freedom of Press and Freedom of Religion on the ropes already.
• 81% of white evangelical Christians voted for Trump. Apparently these people have no fucking clue who Jesus is, and what he stood for.
• What is the best country to move to if you have chronic health issues in the family?
• The US killed an 8 year old American in a botched military operation this week, and no one in the media or government seems to give a shit.
• Russia invaded Ukraine, and nobody in the media or government gives a shit.
• Israel is getting aggressive on the West Bank, and nobody in the media or government gives a shit.

I was watching BBC News from the treadmill in the mornings, but I quit that and an currently listening to Dan Carlin's latest Hardcore History podcast on the Cold War and Nuclear Armageddon. It's less depressing than current events as I know we actually survive the Cold War. I'm not that confident about the reign of Trump the Orange.

I'm 50/50 on how to deal with this. I can make very good arguments for going full on activist and agitating the status quo as much as I can. I can also make a very good argument for deleting Facebook and Twitter and hunkering down with my family while trying to avoid as much of the fallout as we can. I've found myself noticeably agitated after catching up on the news lately. The obvious answer is to avoid the news, but I do believe staying informed is important. One thing I'm trying this week is avoiding social media first thing in the AM and start my day with a pass through The Guardian US News section. This way I know the news before I start seeing people's reactions to the news. However, one thing I've already noticed after 3 days of this approach is that most reactions to the news are worthless. Hyperbolic and sensationalized reactions to everything Trump does is just going to wear us all down. That might even be Bannon's plan. The instant reaction demanded by social media is not healthy.

Something else that I've noticed is that an in-your-face asshole and racist in the White House seems to have emboldened those in my life with the same qualities. I guess I should be thankful that they are outing themselves. The block, unfollow, and unfriend features on Facebook and Twitter have been getting a workout over the last week. I've blocked every news source I see on Facebook, and have been religiously telling FB "no mas" on all political posts. It seems to be working, but most of my Facebook wall is still people stressing out just like I am. As I posted on Twitter earlier today, "I'm noticing an inverse relationship between the amount of time I spend on Facebook and Twitter, and my personal happiness." I may need to block and hide everybody except for a select few that I want to stay in constant contact with. Or I could just delete it all. If people can't be bothered to text, email, or check here to stay in touch I'm not really losing much, am I?

On the other hand, I'm healthy and gainfully employed, my wife is beating cancer, my kids are awesome young adults, and nothing I wrote above really matters compared to that.

And because 2017 is such a shit show so far, have another puppy.