Those of us that work in education have to balance an unbridled optimism and joy that we want to share with students with the mounting frustrations we deal with. It presents an interesting dichotomy, but in my mind it is fairly easy. I am increasingly discovering that it is the adults that are the source of the frustration. When you keep peeling back that onion you soon discover that virtually all of the adults see eye to eye on what should really be done. We are just left to go with the flow in an impersonal system that has its own ways and own mind about such things. I have to practice turning off the frustrated face and switching the happy one back on.

Generally speaking, I try to be a jovial person. I haven’t always been this way. I experienced a bit of a conversion several years when I entered the hospital with a staph infection. I came out of that experience with all my fingers and toes and with a new understanding that nothing is ever guaranteed.

This is a daily battle. It is a daily battle to look at things from the bright side. It isn’t something that comes naturally or easily. Gratitude is a choice and it is one that has to be made daily. Grievance leads to anger, frustration, and more importantly envy. Envy leads to the dark side. This is where so many people are these days. Avoiding it involves seeing it and acknowledging it. It involves a self-talk that can bring me out of that head space.

The last several weeks in particular have produced three noble truths that I cannot ignore. First, I am angry. There is a meme going around where we acknowledge that both sides hate. One side hates women, black people, immigrants, liberals, and LGTBQ+. The other side hates bigots. Hate is a strong word, but the anger is palpable.

The second noble truth is that this anger is justified. I don’t think people quite understand what life is like for a progressive Christian these days. We feel that our faith has been hijacked on one side and is being mocked on another front. When we were growing up we learned what we were supposed to be as Christians. We were taught to love everyone. We were taught to accept everyone. We were taught that our love and charity shouldn’t come with strings attached.

Then, when we tried to live according to that creed we were told we were not Christian. We just weren’t judgmental enough. We were only Christian if we supported a man that represented every vice we were warned about growing up. So, that when we say we are Christian we are immediately judged by those that follow someone that represents just about everything evil in the world. Of course, we were then judged by those non-Christians that simply being Christian means you are an asshole like they are.

The anger is justified because it masks a profound sadness. It masks a sadness for the loss of loved ones that have been taken in by hate. They have been taken in by bigotry, grievance, and disinformation. I feel powerless to do anything and say anything. Decency has become a vice. Cruelty has become a virtue. Up is down. Left is right. Black is white. In this bizarro world, the ravings of a demented and evil man become virtue and truth. Of course, I’m angry. It is the stage after the anger that worries me.

One thing I’ll bet the TFG staff never suspected they’d have to deal with in their campaign was having a rally warm-up comedian tell a string of racist jokes that would be all anyone ever talked about in the media coverage that ensued. A whole string of speakers – including Bronzer Boy himself – followed, but no one got the column inches like ol’ Tom Whatzizname got.

So, I thought, turnabout is fair play. Why not tell some Nazi jokes? Not just any ones will do, though. They should be Flüsterwitze, or “whisper jokes,” the jokes that Germans would tell each other during the 3rd Reich that sometimes got them in hot “wasser” with the local SS.

Some of them aren’t very funny by our standards, but then, you could say that about Tom Whatzizname’s jokes.

At a press meeting, Josef Goebbels tells an American journalist: “If Roosevelt had something like the SS, there wouldn’t be any gangsters left in the US!” The journalist answers: “Of course not. They would all be squad leaders by now.”

What’s the difference between Christianity and National Socialism? With Christianity one man died for all of us, but in National Socialism all of us are expected to die for one.

Hitler is visiting an insane asylum. The patients lined up by their beds greet him with “Heil Hitler!” One man stands aside and does not greet him at all. Hitler gets angry and asks him why. He answers: “I’m not crazy, I am the ward’s orderly.”

An Essener and a Berliner talk about the damage done by allied bombing campaigns. Says the guy from Berlin: The last bombing run on the capital was so serious, the window panes kept falling out until five hours after the raid. The guy from Essen replies: That’s nothing! After the last bombing run, pictures of the Führer kept flying out of the windows for fourteen days!

Soldiers of the Volkssturm are now being sent to the front in pairs. One throws a stone, and the other one shouts “boom!”

When a silver aeroplane flies over, it’s American. When there’s a green plane, it’s British. When there are no aircraft, that’s the Luftwaffe.

When a clock goes forward it goes ‘tic-tac’ – but when Rommel goes backwards, it’s tactic.

On the Wehrmacht sniper training range, the lieutenant says to a fellow soldier: “That guy over there is pretty good”.

“Yes indeed, but I have a feeling that we should better check his personal background”.

“Why,” asks the lieutenant.

“After every shot he carefully removes his fingerprints from the rifle”.

A man walks into the records office and asks to change his name.

The clerk is not keen on helping but asks the man’s name and the man replies “My name is Adolf Stinkfoot.”

The clerk is sympathetic and decides to allow the man to change his unfortunate name. “What do you want to change it to?” asks the clerk, the man replies “Maurice Stinkfoot.”

Propaganda guy asks a youth:
– Who is your father?
– Fuhrer Adolf Hitler!
– Who is your mother?
– Great Germany!
– What is your dream?
– To become an orphan!

Herr Sergeant, we have food only for half our unit!
All right, we shall eat after the attack.

Rule 1: Know who your voters are.

The lawyer who co-founded Meidas Touch’s “Legal AF” podcast, Michael Potok, has coined a phrase that seems inspired by Anti Vietnan War rallying cries.

See title above for clarity.

The “she” that he refers to is none other than District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Judge Cannon that dismissed 40 felony charges against Don the Con for stealing and then hiding classified documents.

According to this article in Newsweek, Potok claims that Judge Cannon has been seen at the top of a list list of candidates to be considered for appointment to US Attorney General should TFG win in the election next week.

The article speculates that while the information was “leaked” by the TFG campaign, it may have been an intentional leak to gauge public reaction.

Well, it’s nice to see that “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight” still has a huge say in how they conduct their campaign. This information cannot be ignored by Appellate Judges for the 11th Circuit. Cannot have come at a worse time.

In considering Jack Smith’s appeal of Cannon’s dismissal of all charges in the case on the flimsiest excuse imaginable, there appears to be one more reason to overturn the dismissal: rank corruption.

Mind you, there are plenty of reasons to overturn Cannon’s dismissal. But this particular one really does take the wind out of any “double jeopardy” argument TFG’s lawyers might want to make.

There can be no “double jeopardy” when, at least with Aileen Cannon deciding the case, there was no jeopardy for him in the first place.

In the final 20 days of a given federal election, the FEC requires House, Senate and quarterly-filing presidential committees file a 48-Hour Notice (Form 6) anytime they receive a contribution of $1,000 or more.

Are you curious about how TFG’s “real” campaign committee was doing just before the fascist display at Madison Square Garden? So am I.

So it was fortuitous that Alfredo at the Dairy Queen passed a note to inform us that the haul taken in the interval before his “MSG Fascist Fest” of people donating more than $1,000 was a grand total of $5,164.08 from five donors.

This must be some sort of record.

I mean, that’s it. That’s all of it. That’s pitiful by anyone’s calculation and conveys a message all by itself.

But here’s the thing. I am a little flummoxed about why 4 of the 5 payers donated exactly $1,041.02.

See? $1,041.02!

I get it about the secret numbers that people use to convey their juvenile messages, but, aside from an error code from the Zoom app, this one has me beat.

Does anyone have any idea what the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks this number could possibly mean? Please ask your fascist friends if you still have any.

Well it has been a while since we had an America First rally at Madison Square Garden. If you ask me it is long overdue for a repeat. So here we are again.

Here is the OG America First rally put on by the German-American Bund. See those guys in the aisles all dressed in brown shirts? Inspirational, don’t you think?

Here are the original America Firsters showing how illegal immigrants have all given them carpal tunnel syndrome.

Here are original America Firsters all dressed in white.

And here is the leader of the new America First Movement, again speaking at Madison Square Garden, riffing about how he has no teleprompter.

And at the risk of violating Godwin’s Law, do you know who else had no teleprompter?