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‘Better,’ but not yet ‘good’

I believe I have made a reasonably profound conclusion upon returning from my westward journey to clear my head in the wake of my beloved bride’s passing from cancer.

It rests in an answer I give to those who know me and who are acutely aware of what happened to Kathy Anne on Feb. 3.

They ask: How are you doing? How are you feeling?

My answer: I am better. I am not yet good.

The conclusion I have reached? It is that I might never be “good” the way I used to define the word. Does that mean I am going to wallow in my grief? No. It means — as I perceive it — that I will have to accept that the pain that shattered my heart will remain with me for as long as I live.

My task, therefore, will be to carry on even as I continue to hurt. The two elements are not mutually exclusive, as those who have been through it have told me.

One dear friend — a fellow I have known since we were in high school — counseled me on my trip out west to “not be afraid to move forward, but never forget where you’ve been.” He speaks from his own experience of having lost his wife to cancer just a few years ago. My friend is a wise man and I take his advice seriously.

My trip was a good tonic for me. I returned home to North Texas feeling more peaceful than I did when I departed with Toby the Puppy. I am feeling better today than I did a month ago.

And you know what? I am not going to look for the “good” feeling. I will know if and when it shows up … kinda like the moment I first laid eyes on the girl of my dreams.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Friendships are forever

LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. — Jack and I chowed down a couple of burgers in a diner in this community’s downtown district.

It hit me as we chatted about the old days, mutual friends of ours and the good time we had as kids: these friendships last forever. Maybe in longer … if that’s possible.

I have known Jack since our days together in junior high school at the other end of the Portland metro area. Our lives took different paths after we graduated from Parkrose High School in 1967. Jack enlisted in the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam. The Army drafted me and sent me there, too.

We discovered today that we served in close proximity in ‘Nam for a time.

We returned home, met the girls of our dreams, married them and embarked on radically different careers, unbeknownst to each other. He sold real estate; I ventured into journalism.

Many years would pass before our paths would cross again. They did some time ago. I am delighted they did.

Today, we picked up as if that time gap didn’t exist. It was a wonderful, albeit brief, encounter today at the burger joint.

It just reminds me that friendships — those we create and then nurture — are worth the test of time. Ours has endured through that test.

It has helped validate my decision to venture back to where I came into the world. Yes, it has contributed to a bit of healing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Mayor’s legacy lives on

PORTLAND, Ore. — At the risk of being hooted out of the blogging world, I feel the need to extol the legacy that a once-promising politician left behind in the city he led as its mayor.

Neil Goldschmidt took office at City Hall as a young whipper-snapper in 1972. I think he was 32 years of age, a young man elected to lead a city that at the time had about 375,000 residents.

He then proceeded to map out an agenda aimed at creating a vibrant downtown district and enhancing the city’s mass transit system.

Goldschmidt vetoed what was called the Mount Hood Freeway project, which was planned as a highway system from southeast Portland east to Mount Hood, about 50 miles away. The mayor said he didn’t want an endless series of strip malls developed along that corridor.

Instead, he persuaded the city council to focus its interests on downtown and on mass transit. He succeeded.

What has occurred in the 50 years since then is the city’s downtown district became a showpiece. The city’s bus and light-rail systems are the envy of other cities.

Oh, but wait. Goldschmidt then became transportation secretary in the Carter administration before being elected governor of Oregon. Then it hit the fan, as he was exposed as a pedophile after a newspaper investigation revealed he seduced a teenager while he was serving as mayor; reporting revealed he had sex multiple times with an underage girl.

His public service career ended on the spot. He resigned from every board on which he served. The State Capitol staff took down his governor’s portrait from the gallery of former governors and stashed it out of sight.

Goldschmidt went from municipal pioneer to pariah overnight.

He’s gone from public view, but the legacy he built remains. His reputation never will be restored. I don’t necessarily want, though, for the city treasure he discovered to be buried.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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MAGA cult redefines RINO

Republicans In Name Only has become a sort of four-letter word among the MAGA cabal that comprises a good portion of the Republican Party.

Let’s examine the RINO phenomenon for a moment, OK?

Those who now comprise the so-called RINO wing of the party are the same as they always have been. They haven’t modified their positions — as near as I can tell — from when they were first elected to office. Granted, I cannot know the history of every Republican officeholder in the land, but some of the more prominent folks, well, they’re on my radar.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is now considered to be a RINO. Same with former President George W. Bush. Even Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell is forced to wear the RINO label. It’s been said that the late Ronald Reagan, the once-sainted former president, would now be thought of as RINO.

RINOs, whoever they are, remain as they generally have always been. They just refuse to swill the Kool-Aid offered by adherents to the 45th POTUS … who, to my way of thinking is the real RINO among us. He campaigned for the presidency in 2016 as some sort of populist, espousing “America first” notions on trade and our international alliances.

The ex-POTUS captured the fancy of the evangelical Christian movement, although the thrice-married serial philanderer doesn’t know the New Testament from a new pair of socks. Let’s remember, too, that this is the moron who once declared he’s never sought forgiveness for any of the sins he has committed. Hmm. Didn’t Jesus Christ instruct Christians to do that very thing?

He is the RINO. Not the many public officials who wear the Republican Party label with pride in where the party formerly stood.

The MAGA cult has changed the description of what it means to be a “true Republican.” Those who disbelieve the MAGA rants are cast as outliers. What a shameful turn of events.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Now … comes the 1/6 report

Americans with an interest in how the government came under attack on Jan. 6, 2021, and how we might prevent a recurrence of such a travesty have some riveting TV viewing ahead of them.

The House 1/6 select committee is going to meet one final time Monday in front of you and me. It will discuss what it has discovered after interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses and reviewed more than a million documents.

The committee then will take arguably the most monumental congressional votes in U.S. history. It will vote on whether to refer criminal charges against the former president of the United States who, in 1/6, incited the insurrection that tore through the Capitol Building with the aim of overturning a free and fair presidential election.

To be abundantly clear, Congress only can refer criminal charges to the Department of Justice. DOJ must decide whether to indict whoever the congressional committee refers in its report.

And … yes. Donald J. Trump’s name needs to be among those referred for criminal prosecution.

To suggest that the1/6 committee has been anything but meticulous, patient, diligent and courageous in its pursuit of the truth about 1/6 is to be guilty of the most partisan cynicism imaginable.

On the receiving end of those referrals, of course, is Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has insisted repeatedly that “no one is above the law.” By “no one,” he means precisely what we must infer, which is that Donald Trump is vulnerable to a criminal indictment … or two … or three.

Having watched many hours of previous testimony and commentary from committee members, I have no doubt — none, zero! — that Donald Trump committed multiple crimes before, during and after the assault on the Capitol Building.

What remains to be determined if whether the AG is going — after poring through the committee’s findings — to make history by doing something to previous attorney general has done. Will he indict Donald J. Trump?

I believe that moment is coming.

Meanwhile, I am going to listen with the most intense interest possible at committee members’ message as this drama draws to its long-awaited conclusion.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Panel subpoenas Trump … wow!

Well now, the House of Representatives select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection has presented a surprise for those of us wanting to know the whole truth behind what happened on that horrible day.

Except that the panel’s unanimous vote to subpoena Donald J. Trump isn’t likely to provide that long-sought truth. Still, it was a dramatic final act from this committee that now must work like mad to finish its task before the next Congress takes office in January.

What the panel is going to get either are an endless string of Fifth Amendment claims by the former POTUS or an equally endless string of lies.

You see, I happen to believe to the core of my being that Trump cannot tell the truth. The committee would make him take an oath; he would swear to God in heaven to “tell the truth and the whole truth” and then he is likely either to lie or hide behind the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.

I suspect we would watch the former commander in chief cower behind the Constitution … which is his right.

The testimony today included never-before heard audio of members of Congress pleading for help from the cops while Trump did nothing.

Meanwhile, the ex-POTUS has condemned what he calls the “un-select committee” work as a “witch hunt” driven only by partisan concerns. Hmm. Interesting. I guess I should point out that the committee’s vote to summon Trump included those of its two Republican members, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

The drama is going to build to a remarkable crescendo. I look forward to the finale.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Biden goes for MAGA’s throat

If you are wondering at this moment whether President Biden is up for a fight with those who seek to undermine our democratic process, well, you weren’t paying a lick of attention to what the president said in a speech delivered in front of Independence Hall.

He went straight after who he called “MAGA Republicans” and their leader, Donald John Trump. He called the MAGA wing of the GOP opposed to democracy, he accused them of fomenting political violence, he said they want to establish an authoritarian regime.

Game on!

Meanwhile, we hear from Donald Trump, who told a right-wing radio station that if he is elected POTUS — God forbid! — he would likely grant full pardons for everyone who took part in the 1/6 attack on our government.

Is there possibly a greater reason to work like hell to keep that moron out of the White House … for the rest of his sorry life?

President Biden looks to me to be ready to wage political war against those who already have declared war against the government.

Well done, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Pro-life, pro-choice … or both?

Occasionally I have to grapple with my position on abortion. Am I pro-choice? Am I pro-life? Truly, this issue causes me some grief. To alleviate that grief, I have determined I am both.

I now shall explain myself.

If a woman were to ask me for advice on whether to abort a pregnancy, I could not counsel her to do so. Therefore, that resistance to pro-abortion counseling makes me — in my view — pro-life on the issue.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that strips the court’s Roe v. Wade ruling of its power spurs another emotion within. You see, I also believe that government should not govern how women can manage their own reproductive process. That is not a governmental call. Such heart-wrenching decisions belong only to the woman, her partner, her physician, her spiritual leader and, yes, the god she worships.

I have thought about a gentleman with whom I attended church in Amarillo. His name is Doug and he once told a crowd of fellow churchgoers in a voice loud enough for many of us to hear that he was both a “creationist and one who believes in evolution.”

I learned then that Doug, a fellow who is quite a bit older than I am (which is really saying something), takes the same expansive view of Scripture that I do. We believe that the biblical version of “six days” worth of work creating the universe doesn’t mean the same six calendar days we use to measure that length of time.

So it can be with abortion. I see myself as both pro-life and pro-choice on an issue that when all is said about it really is none of my business.

As a 70-something-year-old man I never have had to make that choice for myself, nor will ever have to make it for as long as I walk this good Earth. Nor do I ever expect a woman to ask me whether she should make that choice for herself.

That suits me fine, too … because I never could say “yes” for any woman to commit such an agonizing act.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Ga. probe looms as major Trump threat

If I was a betting man — and I have to stipulate that I am nothing of the sort — I would wager that Donald J. Trump’s gravest threat to his future looms in the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney’s office.

The former president is under investigation in many venues: Congress, the Justice Department, Manhattan (N.Y.) and Fulton County.

It’s the Georgia matter that, to my way of thinking, presents Trump with his most serious threat. Why? Because the whole world has heard Trump’s own voice demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger “find” enough votes to swing the state from Joe Biden’s column to Trump’s.

Where I come from, I believe that amounts to a clear-cut, no-questions-need-asking, tried-and-true case of election tampering.

Oh, and there’s more to that recorded conversation. You might recall that Trump actually threatened Raffensberger with criminal prosecution if he didn’t do what the president wanted him to do.

I have been wondering ever since I heard about this: If this doesn’t constitute a crime, then what in the world qualifies?

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is pursuing this probe with all appropriate vigor. Indeed, I have thought all along that this case presented Trump with his most daunting set of allegations. What’s more — thanks to Raffensberger, who thought to record the phone conversation — we can hear the POTUS in his own voice pressuring the election official to, shall we say, “steal the 2020 presidential election.”

The House select committee that is pursuing the insurrection also is piling up a mountain of evidence that suggests criminality within the White House. The Manhattan probe, though, appears to be losing steam. The Justice Department probe? Well, Attorney General Merrick Garland has made it abundantly clear that “no one is above the law” and by “no one,” the AG means, well … no one.

If I were Donald Trump — and I am so glad that I ain’t — I would be sweatin’ bullets over what might be coming his way from Deep in the Heart of Dixie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Anger: so unbecoming

I hate feeling angry. I also hate that the people who represent me in the government we elect are angry with each other and seemingly with the world.

Who’s to blame for this anger? As my dear Mom would say: I’ll give you three clues … and the first two don’t count.

I have to circle back to the guy who lost the most recent presidential election, but whose own anger at losing it fairly, squarely and legally has prevented him from saying so. Thus, the anger has festered.

I won’t spend a lot of time and emotional capital lamenting the cause of this anger. I’ve traipsed down that road often and with extreme prejudice already.

What is so concerning to me is the fear that the anger will persist long after Donald Trump is no longer on the scene. Now, by “on the scene,” I am referring to his relevance as a political player. However, he is 76 years of age and eventually he’ll be seriously “no longer on the scene” … if you get my drift and I’m sure you do.

Even after he departs the good Earth, I fear his legacy will fester amid the anger he sowed the moment he rode down the escalator at that glitzy hotel of his and declared his intention to run for the presidency. His first words were to blame Mexico for sending us drug dealers, rapists and killers and then he vowed to ban all Muslims from coming to the Land of Opportunity.

Anger … anyone?

The anger has continued to grow in Congress, and it has spilled onto the floors of state legislatures, into city halls and county courthouses, into school board meeting rooms. Qualified educators are quitting the teaching profession they formerly loved because parents have grown angry over mask mandates to fend off the infectious pandemic that has killed about 1 million Americans.

Members of Congress say they cannot serve with members of “the other party” because of physical threats. Have I mentioned that most of the complaints come from congressional Democrats who point the finger at hyper-angry Republicans? There. I just did.

I am by nature a happy fellow. I do not like being angry. It’s not part of my DNA. Indeed, I hope that when my time on Earth runs out that I’ll be remembered as a nice guy whose first instinct was to think well of people.

I do have a fear that the anger that permeates so much of our life these days is becoming like an indelible stain that I cannot wash away.

Therein just might lie Donald Trump’s enduring legacy. He has built an angry society. It is so very unbecoming.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com