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Sometimes the only way I can deal with reality is by laughing at it. Reading the news over the last week, like most people with any kind of common sense, I became close to paralyzed by grief, sadness and anxiety. I thought I might try to work my way through it by writing a clever blog post. It was going to start with a quote from Marc Maron’s deftly timed “End of Times” comedy special. Then I was going to go sci-fi. It was going to be an onion-style PR update from a (so far) fictional G7 interstellar conference featuring planet leaders from deep space,  where it was decided by unanimous vote that humans should not be allowed to leave their planet. It was supposed to be a play on Space-X’s successful manned space launch in the middle of a pandemic and oh yeah, while country wide protests were occurring in real time – bordering on a very real civil war.  Funny, right?  I couldn’t help but point out the juxtaposition of humanity’s capacity for technological brilliance alongside it’s cruelty and wanton violence.

This morning, I learned, like the rest of the world, that the country burned for a second night. Police SUVs rammed through crowds of protestors.  Heavily armed police units shooting at citizens on their doorsteps. Shooting, attacking, harassing and arresting news crews. Curfews.  National Guard deployments across a half dozen states.  Threats of military intervention on their own citizens.  I no longer feel like laughing. I no longer think I can be funny. Like so many others, I am filled with fury and disgust.

All the while, the president of the free world threatens protestors with violence.

A president that has no scheduled events today.

A president that plans to play golf. Again.

Democracy, if it is even still present in some parts of the United States of America, seems to be hanging by a thread.

Stay safe, protest peacefully.

And vote.

Featured top photo courtesy wikipedia.