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Two stories today, and all sorts of people are saying one is just a distraction from the other, but which is a distraction from which is more a sign of which side you’re on.  Two things to remember:  A. All the facts aren’t in yet, and B. It’s entirely possible that both stories are true.  Just because Trump gave secrets to the Russians doesn’t mean Seth Rich wasn’t murdered by the DNC.

Both stories are bizarre.  President Trump met with a bunch of Russians, including the Russian  ambassador, at the White House.  The press was not invited.  The American press, that is.   The Russian press was there.  Right there, it’s weird and possibly treasonous.  Then, they say that Trump gave secrets to the Russians during this secret meeting, and I wonder how anyone could possibly know that, but then Trump tweets about it and says “Of course I’m allowed to share secrets with the Russians.”  So, it’s real.

Then, and this is the hard part for me to grasp, the Russians make no secret of any of  it, Russian media is all  over it, and I wonder why they would do that.  This is not thinking long term, this is not chess, and Russians are good at chess.

If I was Putin, I’d have  wanted the whole meeting handled as hush-hush as possible, to keep that spigot of high value information open.  So, why didn’t they?

My guess is that they are perfectly  aware that they are dealing with an imbecile, somebody who’s got the emotional development of a 6 year old and the IQ of a peanut.  They are having a good laugh about it, and feel that the laugh is worth more than any crap info they are likely to get from us in future.

On the Seth Rich story, a private investigator says he’s got proof that Rich (a DNC insider) had contacted Wikileaks and given them over 40,000 emails before he was murdered.  Boom.  The DNC had motive, and this  story  about  how it was just your  ordinary, everyday mugging in which they shot  him dead and didn’t take anything, doesn’t sound so plausible any more.  I am one who  has always believed Seth Rich (and John Ashe) were murdered, so this is preaching to the choir for me, but it’s early days yet and we don’t know what’s happening for sure yet.

On the good news front, Chelsea Manning is getting out of jail tomorrow.

I hate the term ‘mansplaining.’  I have often been accused of it, specifically by Hillary supporters who can’t win an argument legitimately, but in other cases as well.  I don’t see how I can avoid it.  I am a man.  If I say, or write something that is intended to impart information, or advance my view of the world, then I am explaining something and, merely due to the fact  that I am male, it is defined as mansplaining, which is apparently a bad thing.

I suppose it cuts both ways.  If a woman is explaining something to a man, some might call it emasculating, and sometimes it is.  Tone of voice is important, and tone of voice is heavily influenced by intent, and some women are bitches and some men are assholes.  I don’t have exact stats on  the breakdown, but it is inevitable.

Today, just a few minutes ago in fact, I learned a new word.  ‘Manterrupting.’  Now, I  hate being interrupted.  It is a pet peeve of mine.  I would be happy if all human conversation was moderated with gongs and buzzers and everybody was forced to raise their hand and be called  on before speaking (not really, that would be horribly restrictive, but I feel like that sometimes).  I’m not sure if it’s just that nobody takes me seriously (Seriously, nobody takes me seriously)  or if, actually, everybody feels  that  way. I suspect the latter.
I suppose it’s conceivably true that it happens to women more than men.  There have been studies.  And, I’m not a woman, so I really wouldn’t know.

I had two things on  my  to  do list for this weekend, and as of this morning they were both undone: to  finish my ‘Rheets 2016: The Year from Hell’ book (Rheets is  rhyming tweets), and to  write a poem.

But, the Rheets book was basically done, all  I  had  to  do was turn it  over to Helena for the formatting and then a final proofreading and off to Amazon it goes, and they are usually pretty  quick  about getting it published.  We didn’t actually finish, there were some last minute computer glitches, but we’ll get it tomorrow, no problem.  Pressure’s off.  Really, it was never so much pressure, but the procrastination was becoming chronic.

Plus, I did write a poem this morning, although it wasn’t the one  I’d planned on writing.  The one that I’d planned on writing, which I’ve had in my mind since Wednesday, started on the train, something about how we may be just a cog in  a great machine, but what a magnificent machine, and we may be only pawns in the game of life, but a very insistent pawn eventually becomes a machine, and it’s the rhyme between machine and queen that I  like but I’m kind of stumped.  I’ve got the beginning, I’ve got the  end, I don’t have the middle and the middle is the  key, it’s the cherry in the chocolate, the  free  toy that you  buy the whole box of cereal for.
The one I  did write was a response to someone who responded to the  news of  ice geysers and possible life on Encepheladus, a moon  of  Saturn, by saying ‘We shouldn’t go  there, we screw up everything we touch,’ and I hate that  attitude, the idea that we could  just turn off our natural curiosity, our desire to  find out what’s going on in the universe.

So, I wrote a little poem about the eternal spirit of exploration, but I’m not  so  sure anybody will get it, out  of context.  Also, added a  new post to Poems About Paintings today, which has become an all too rare occurrence.

Kind of a slow, relaxing Saturday, the family  went to IKEA, I stayed home and finished a book, which really meant writing short section introductions and checking the spacing to make sure no poems got cut into two  pieces.

So, I watched ‘Arrivals’ by  myself.  Well, not entirely by myself.  Helena was good enough to watch it  with  me, but she wasn’t really  paying attention  and didn’t enjoy it much.  But, still, she stayed in the same room and made some attempt to figure out  what was going on, so I’m thankful for that.

I quite enjoyed it.  There wasn’t a lot going on through most of the film.  The army  boys were such stereotypes that I  kept  expecting to see the classic 50s sci-fi alien movie cliche where the soldiers all  fire at  the alien, but either a force field goes  up or the bullets  just bounce off and then they zap some poor sap, they   light  up and you  can see their skeleton and then they drop down dead, but nothing like that happened.    The biggest action was the scene where she snatched the guys phone (biggest prick in the place, don’t recall his title exactly), and security tracked her down.

But, that’s O.K.  It focused on the language, which will be a huge barrier if we ever do manage to contact aliens and it  would behoove us to recall how easy  it is to get confused between tool and weapon,  and what a costly mistake that  can be.

As an English teacher, I loved her methodology.  ‘Ian Walks.’  Hah.

Then, of course, the ending, which I  didn’t quite see coming.  So, I won’t spoil it.

“James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he  starts leaking to the press,” the president of the United States tweeted.

So many questions.  Let’s start with these first four  words, James Comey better hope…this is so totally reminiscent of 6th grade, I am a bit surprised that men over the age of 20 would use that particular phraseology at all, unless perhaps ironically.  It is, at least linguistically, and in  the great majority of actual instances, the emptiest of threats.

Why had he better hope?  What are you  going to do?  Send a hit squad?  Swamp him with bitter, bitter tweets at 2 a.m. for the  rest of his  life?  Fire him some more?  Blackmail, maybe?
And then, an even bigger question.  Does Trump not actually know whether or  not  there are such tapes?  Who’s in charge over there, anyway?
Then there’s the quote mark around tapes (i.e. “tapes”) which looks a bit weird but, I ‘ll give him a pass on that.

Now, let’s get to the  meat of the matter.  First, what did Comey say, or admit to,  in that meeting that he should be afraid of having it revealed?   If Trump knows, and he must, having been present, (although  I guess that’s not entirely a foregone conclusion), why hasn’t he gone ahead with the reveal already?

The most important question, though, is  what does  Comey  have to go to the press with?
This is the can of worms that has been opened.