A couple of weeks ago, I took some time off and mentioned that I would be back this week with something funny.
I know a lot of you might think that is a great stretch for me, but once in a while, you have to admit, I do write something mildly amusing. Notice I did not say hilarious. Mildly amusing. Smile inducing. I don’t claim to make people actually laugh, but once or twice I have made someone smile slightly.
I had thought I might do a year-in-review kind of thing for 2020, but I think we are all happy to have seen last year come and go. It seems, however, in the first full week of 2021, we don’t seem to know what we are doing any better than we did a week ago. A year-in-review and a document of the first week of this year would probably be summed up with the acronym “SOS.” I don’t think I have to explain that one you any of you.
I looked back at my notes I had taken along the way in 2020 and realized there really wasn’t anything funny about 2020. About the only funny thing that happened was my wife got her truck stuck in the mud in our yard and had to get a neighbor to pull it out. We, like the rest of you were ready to put 2020 behind us, but 2020 kept following too closely, anxiously awaiting our reaction when 2021 made its mark early on.
So far, 2021, in the space of seven days, has made 2020 look like a walk in the park. I don’t write news. I don’t want to write news. I leave that to the reporters because they do it better than I ever could. I don’t know how to write news, so I don’t think I will try.
When I started this column a few years ago, I made a vow not to delve deeply into politics in the column. I have my views and you have yours and if we make them both entertaining, we can have a good time at each other’s expense.
I neither lean Republican nor Democrat. I am pretty much a textbook moderate, and I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats. This is the only time I am mentioning my personal politics in the column, so read it slowly. I don’t want you to miss anything.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: After the 2020 election, I will not be voting for any Democratic Party Candidate. Additionally, I will not be voting for any Republican candidate, either.
A lot of you gave me some grief when I said I had endorsed a Giant Meteor for president in 2020. I’m willing to bet a couple of you are wishing the Giant Meteor had won.
Both parties are a shambles. Both parties are empty husks of what they once were and those empty husks have been filled to the brim with propaganda, falsehoods, misinformation, runaway egos, sour grapes, revenge, childish behavior and more.
In the last three presidential elections, I have voted a more conservative Republican slant. Before that, I had voted as a moderate Democrat. In 2020 and going into 2021, I am again throwing my support toward anyone else. I’d vote for a pile of rocks before I vote for any of the yahoos who seemingly get reelected without actually doing anything. That doesn’t leave me with a lot of options.
Yesterday, I watched a sitting American president, one I had voted for, all but encourage the violence at the Capitol. In a matter of a few hours, the president I had voted for decided that moderates like me did not matter and the extreme supporters did. He did not respect the physical building of the Capitol and what it stands for.
Yesterday, the President of the United States taped a video that did not condemn the actions of a few, but was about him and only him and how the election was false because he did not win. These are the actions of a child, not a world leader.
Yes, I knew what I was getting when I voted for him. He accomplished a great number of things, fought against an establishment that endlessly tried to remove him from office, and threw it all away because he got a raw deal in an election. His vice president refused to throw away the Constitution when pressured by his boss.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not an endorsement of the Biden administration. I am not what you would call a huge fan of them. If Donald Trump and Joe Biden are the best our nation can come up with, we really don’t have much to complain about when they fail to meet our expectations.
I’m tired of the rhetoric. I’m tired of the fighting. I’m tired of fake news and propaganda and liberals and conservatives and all of it. I tried to get everyone to see the benefits of Giant Meteor. We did this to ourselves. Only we can get ourselves out of it.
Joe Weaver, a native of Baltimore, is a husband, father, pawnbroker and gun collector. From his home in New Bern, he writes on the lighter side of family life.
