insanity

It Makes You Wonder

Fandango5 Comments

Every so often I read an article that expresses something I had been thinking about. Such an article appeared in the only magazine I subscribe to, The Week, and the writer expressed it better than I ever could hope to.

Written by Editor-at-Large William Falk, it appeared in the September 5, 2025 issue of the magazine. So, without further ado…

As the United States descends into one-man, authoritarian rule, I sometimes wonder what Donald Trump’s collaborators really think. By collaborators, I do not mean the true MAGA cultists, who welcome his tyrannical intrusion into every aspect of American life, his military occupation of American cities, and his unrestrained use of government power to intimidate and punish opponents, critics, and immigrants.

The collaborators I am referring to are the once-principled Reaganites, the small-government libertarians, and the conservative commentariat who, through fear or tribal allegiance, are still defending or downplaying the Maximum Leader’s insistence that everyone — private companies, universities, museums, states, cities, the Fed, the Justice Department, other countries — must capitulate to his will or suffer his wrath.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a useful example. In 2016, Rubio compared Trump to a “third-world strongman” and warned that “many people on the Right” will have “to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump because this is not going to end well.” Does “Little Marco” now feel this is likely to end well because he’s sold his soul?

Before his own cynical conversion, Vice President JD Vance observed that Trump was “an idiot” who was “unfit for our nation’s highest office” and might turn into “America’s Hitler.” Is the sour tang of tyranny more palatable now that JD sits at the ruler’s table?

And what of Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, the Russia hawks, the Supreme Court justices, and Republicans who once professed loyalty to free markets, free speech, and personal liberty, and celebrated America’s role as the “shining city on the hill”? Do they privately cringe over the North Korea–style groveling at Trump’s Cabinet meetings, his fawning admiration of the war criminal Vladimir Putin, his assault on laws, alliances, science, data, and reality itself, and the authoritarian precedents he is setting for future presidents? Do they ever say to spouses or confidantes: “My God, he’s crazy. He’s out of control”?

Their silence is their acquiescence, and makes them complicit in the damage already done, and in whatever insanity is to come.

Well said, Mr. Falk.

Image conjured using ChatGPT.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — August 15th

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Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term subscribers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about it? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on any day this past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on August 15, 2018. It was written in response to a One-Liner Wednesday prompt from Linda G. Hill. But as you’ll see, I used to write a lot more back in 2018 than just one-liners.

One-Liner Wednesday — Change

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.”

Jessie Potter

That was the advice of Jessie Potter, an educator and counselor on family relationships and human sexuality. The context of his quote was about sex and love. He was asserting that change is needed in the American way of growing up, falling in love, raising a family, and growing old.

Similar statements have been attributed to a number of people, from Henry Ford to Tony Robbins and even to Albert Einstein, who also expressed a similar sentiment when he said:

“The world as we have created it is a product of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Albert Einstein is also broadly credited with saying that:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

And Russian author Leo Tolstoy said:

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

All four of these quotes are about change. Changing the way you think, the way you act, and what you do. Because change is progress and failure to change is stagnation.

I promised myself I wasn’t going to get political in this post, but oh well. Conservatives generally don’t like change. They prefer to keep things the way they are — or the way they were, you know, like they used to be (“Make America Great Again”).

They don’t particularly like societal changes. They don’t embrace changing demographics. They deny climate change. They want the U.S. Constitution to be interpreted just as it was written around 230 years ago, as if time has stood still since 1787.

But change is as inevitable as the sunrise and the tides. And remember, if we fail to change, we stagnate.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt.

Six Sentence Story — The Eve of Destruction

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I’ve decided that I am going to become a hermit, to isolate myself from society and the nonsense that is swirling all around me.

Insanity, violence, and religious and political chaos are happening right outside my door and the nation I was born and raised in is on the precipice of collapse, yet people continue to claim that, like climate change, it’s much ado about nothing and that we are not on the eve of destruction.

You may call it avoidance, but I find that I am slowly and almost eagerly withdrawing further and further into myself, wanting to have little to do with what is going on in the real world, in the physical world.

Technology, for better or worse, is my enabler, allowing me to stay in touch through texts, emails, and my blog with those I want to without leaving the comfort and security of my own home.

Meal delivery services drop complete meals off at my front door, grocery delivery services deliver the equivalent of full shopping carts to my door on demand, and anything else I need or want is just a click away on Amazon.

So yes, becoming a hermit seems to be the best way for me to maintain my mental health and well-being in a mad, mad, mad world that is most definitely on the eve of destruction.

Written for the Sunday Six Sentence Story prompt from Girlie on the Edge, where the prompt word is “hermit.” Photo credit: Noah Silliman on Unsplash.

JYProvocative Question #10

Fandango17 Comments

Our host for the weekly provocative question challenge is Jewish Young Professional, aka JYP.

So what is her provocative question for this week? JYP wants to know…

Have you ever changed your mind on a position stance or changed an opinion you previously held? What was the impetus for the change? Was it difficult for you to admit that your views had changed?

This question is very similar to one WordPress posed about five weeks ago in its Daily Prompt, “What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?”

In my response to the WordPress prompt, I cited two things: My belief in God and my belief in American Exceptionalism. I’m not going to bring up God again, but given what is happening politically, I am going to reiterate my comments on American Exceptionalism.

I believed American exceptionalism well into my adulthood. When I was in high school, my father and I had many arguments over the war in Vietnam. He thought we (the U.S.) had no business fighting that war and wastefully killing so many American soldiers for an unjustified and unjust war.

In the defense of America, I argued that it was a necessary war based upon the infamous “Domino Theory.” The Domino Theory was a prevailing belief that communism was an internationalist movement that would spread from one country to the next until it dominated the world, much as a row of dominos collapses one after the other. 

Vietnam was the key domino to the communization of all of Southeast Asia, the theory went. But by the time I graduated from college, my position on Vietnam had changed radically and I realized that the Domino Theory was bullshit.

Still, I believed in and loved America. but that belief and love were tested in 2000 when George W. Bush was handed the Presidency by the Supreme Court after losing the popular vote. It eroded even further when the incompetent Donald Trump lost the popular vote by almost three million but, due to the antiquated and racist Electoral College, became President.

Trump lost in 2020, but has yet refused to recognize his loss. He instigated an unsuccessful coup against the U.S. government in 2021, and has been indicted this year four times on nearly 100 counts of illegal or unethical acts. Yet he is the leading candidate to win the Republican nomination for the 2024 election. And in head to head polls with President Joe Biden, it’s neck and neck, with Trump, the American traitor, ahead of Biden in some polls.

The only thing about America today that is exceptional is how the insanity of Trumpism has infected the Republican party and is finding favor with evangelical Christians and right-wing white nationalists. It’s a sickness.

I lost my belief in God decades ago. And I’m on the precipice of losing my belief in country. If Trump does run for president next year and wins, I will lose my belief in and love for my country. Because that country will no longer exist.

One-Liner Wednesday — Mass Insanity

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“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, and writer

While Friedrich Nietzsche died 121 years ago, it’s as if he was warning us about the mass insanity that has gripped the United States Republican Party in the 21st century, especially in the post-2020 presidential election era.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday Prompt.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — December 4

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Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 4th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on my old blog on December 4, 2009.

Oh the Iron-y of it All

Christmas is 21 days away and the insanity has already started. No, I’m not talking about Black Friday mall shopping or Cyber Monday web-shopping. I’m talking about the crazies who believe that Christmas is under siege by non-believers. I’m talking about the radio stations that have converted over to all Christmas music all the time. (Hey, I don’t mind an occasional Christmas carol every once in a while, but constant Christmas music? Fuhgeddaboudit!)

I’m also talking about what also seems to occur with some regularity around this time of the year: the sightings of images of Jesus and/or the Virgin Mary in very unlikely places. Back in July I posted about a rash of Virgin Mary sightings. She was seen everywhere, from bird droppings on a truck’s mirror to a grilled cheese sandwich to a restaurant’s griddle to a building’s window.

The Jesus Iron

The latest holy sighting, though, is not the Virgin Mary, but her immaculately conceived son, Jesus. As we enter this year’s holiday season, Jesus apparently chose to show himself on the bottom of an iron! Indeed, Mary Jo Coady of Methuen, MA saw the image of Jesus staring back at her on the slightly stained bottom of her iron. She then did what anyone would do. She took a picture of it.

To make sure she wasn’t imagining Jesus’ appearance on her iron, she called her daughters and shared the photo of the Jesus iron with them. Both of Mary Jo’s daughters confirmed seeing the image of Jesus on the iron, proving without doubt that “it” runs in the family. Mary Jo then posted the picture — where else? — on her Facebook account.

Ultimately, a local newspaper heard about it published the story about Mary Jo and her iron, including a picture of the appliance. The Associated Press picked up the story and, well, now Mary Jo’s Jesus iron is famous.

Unlike others, though, such as, for example, the New Mexico café owner who erected a shrine around her Virgin Mary griddle or the Florida woman who auctioned her decade old, half-eaten Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich on eBay, Mary Jo says she’s not planning to enshrine her iron or to open up her home for public viewing and praying (or for an opportunity to iron with Jesus). But she does plan to purchase a new iron and to retire the holy Walmart-brand iron and put it aside for “safe keeping.”

I found it interesting that her church pastor, Rev. Thomas Keyes, who has not yet seen the divine iron, seemed a bit skeptical. He believes that God or saints might choose to appear “in person, as opposed to on a toaster, a cinnamon roll, a car’s windshield, a Frito, or whatever. But then, God does what he wants.” Good for Rev. Keyes, but isn’t it a bit ironic (pun intended) that a Catholic priest expressed cynicism about this holy iron? After all, if you look carefully at the bottom of the iron, you could argue that it wasn’t the image of Jesus, but that of Howard Stern, that was pressed into the bottom of that not-so-stainless steel Walmart iron.

Jesus or Howard Stern: who is the real “iron” man?

That said, I wish all of you a happy holiday season, especially to those who get offended when people use the inclusive “season’s greetings” or “happy holidays” instead of the exclusive “Merry Christmas.”

One-Liner Wednesday — Delusion

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“When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity; when many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.”

Robert Pirsig, American writer and philosopher

Oh Fandango, you didn’t really do that did you?

Do what?

Use that quote for today’s one-liner.

Hey, I didn’t say that. I was quoting Robert Pirsig. You know, the author of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

Well, Dango, you’d better be prepared for a backlash for this one-liner. It’s gonna piss some people off.

No worries, pal. I say bring it on!

Written for today’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt from Linda G. Hill.

I is for Insanity

Fandango14 Comments

A2Z2020For this year’s A to Z Challenge I’m going to attempt to post an old saying or adage each day of the month of April (except for Sundays). I’m going through the alphabet, with the first letter of the adage beginning with the first letter of the alphabet (A) and continuing for 26 adages in alphabetical order until I get through the entire alphabet by April 30 — from A to Z.

I don’t know if it can be done, but I’m going to give it the old college try. Here’s my April 10th adage and it starts with the letter I.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

One-Liner Wednesday — Learning From History

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“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”

German philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel 

Hegel lived from 1770 to 1831. Around 200 years later, American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, Warren Buffet, said “What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”

And then, along the same line, there’s the famous George Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Or the Winston Churchill version, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

Basically, humans seem not to learn from history or tend not to remember the past, as evidenced by the fact that we tend to make the same mistakes over and over again.

And as Albert Einstein allegedly said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday and for Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (history).