Erasing Bookmarks

I don't go to a lot of places online anymore that I used to go to dozens of times a day. I'm not sure why I ever went to them now. I look at them and find them vapid and full of trivial matters. When we, as a country, are debating war crimes trials for former presidents and vice presidents and whether we can survive as a constitutional democracy because we have betrayed every principle of morality and virtue bequeathed us by our Founders, I simply cannot understand the attraction of things like reality television or sports or even--gasp--books. I haven't completely given up on those things as leisure activities. But I see no reason to endlessly obssess over them or even discuss them with anyone other than my sisters or John.

I honestly believe that many people don't care about what happens to our country at this point. They are much too selfish and self-involved to understand what a pivotal historical moment we are in and, if they do understand it, they don't really seem to care as long they have theirs, whatever that "theirs" may be. I know that not everyone is this way. But it sure seems the vast majority of people who hang out in those places are, if their conversations online are any indication. I know one place that I'm sure is happy I am gone because there is no way they would have avoided discussing torture and how we are now a nation no better than North Vietnam, North Korea, China, Cuba, Peronista Argentina, and Nazi Germany. I popped over to that site today for the first time in ages just to see what people there were saying about this sad turn of events. Turns out, there is not one single thread about it. Not one. No discussion of it at all. I find that more appalling than I can say. I know there are some good people there. But they don't care about this. They'd rather put their heads in the sand and, as they like to say, talk about "puppies and pudding skins." And that is not the only one of the above mentioned places that is uncomfortable with this discussion. But it is the only one that is completely ignoring it. I find that stunning. And a turn of events that makes me wonder how good, really, all those good people I thought I knew there actually are. The whole exercise of visiting these old haunts was so dispiriting that I have now erased all the old bookmarks. I won't be going back for any reason, not even simple curiosity. I find I am repelled and disgusted by those who willfully ignore the existential crises of our country almost as much as I am by those who brought this crisis about. Good Germans, indeed.

On a more cheerful note, it all made me appreciate how lucky I am to have John now. He is the exact opposite of that. More on him later.