Who’s Zoomin’ Who, Donny?

I have long contended that if the GOPe (GOP Establishment) were forced to choose between the two, Cruz or Trump, they’d choose Trump in a heart beat. Why? Here’s why (You can click the image on the right to enlarge it):


Gravy train. “Trump train” my ass . It’s the gravy train that’s now a’rollin’. Of the two, Trump will deal. Cash. Cruz will always choose the Constitution.

And cash is more fun, isn’t it?

Add in this excellent article below from American Thinker by Daren Jonescu, and it appears my thinking is now being actively validated.


 

Is Trump a McConnell-Rove Establishment Tool?

On January 19, Donald Trump, the loudest Republican claimant to the anti-establishment label, filled out his recent attacks on Ted Cruz in a very telling way, as revealed on Mark Levin’s radio program (click here, select the 1/19/16 podcast, go to the 23 minute mark):

We've been contacted by the establishment types.  They all want to know, how do they get involved with the campaign?  They're giving up on their candidates…and I mean these are real establishment people, that I've known when I was a member of the establishment -- meaning a giver, a big donor.  But they are contacting us -- Corey [Trump's campaign manager], I think we can say that very honestly, they're contacting us left and right about joining the campaign, and these are serious establishment types.

Who might these “real,” “serious” establishment types be?  Perhaps there is a hint in this subsequent comment, a follow-up to his recent pro-establishment assault against Ted Cruz:

So when you talk about temperament, Ted has got a rough temperament, I don't know.  You know, you can't call people liars on the Senate floor, when they're your leader.

This, of course, is a direct reference to Cruz’s criticism of Mitch McConnell regarding the GOP establishment leader’s secret deal with Barack Obama prior to a trade vote.

Donald Trump defending Mitch McConnell, you ask?  The answer is yes, and the explanation may be found by examining Trump’s recent history as a political donor.

Back in early 2013, Tea Party conservatives, fed up with McConnell’s feckless (to be generous) Senate leadership, his semi-tough talk that never seems to match his legislative decisions and results, and his relentless suppression of the conservative minority in the Senate, sought to supplant this establishmentarian’s establishmentarian by supporting a conservative rival in the 2014 Kentucky primary.

In response to this challenge, a super PAC called “Kentuckians for Strong Leadership” was formed to raise funds for McConnell’s scorched earth campaign against not only his own Tea Party rival, but the whole Tea Party movement.  I put the group’s name in scare quotes because, of its fifty-eight major donors — those who had given $1000 or more as of May 15, 2014 — the Louisville Courier-Journal identified only five with Kentucky addresses.  “Kentuckians for Strong Leadership” was in fact, as Tony Lee reported at Breitbart at the time, a re-branding of Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, an organization expressly dedicated to destroying the constitutionalist movement in favor of the old guard GOP establishment.

The big donors to Mitch McConnell’s anti-Tea Party defense fund gave amounts ranging from $1000 to $250,000.  In the upper half of this donor list appears one Donald J. Trump, who gave $50,000 to the group.  Five days earlier, he had already donated a few thousand dollars to McConnell’s campaign directly.  This total donation is far and away the largest contribution Trump has ever made to any individual Washington politician’s campaign — at least ten times larger than any other contribution he has made to a national Republican candidate.  Indeed, one has to cross over to the Democrat side of his donor history to find anything comparable to this contribution at any level of government.  That would be his $50,000 donation to Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral campaign in December 2010.

Mitch McConnell has been perhaps the single most prominent leader — certainly the most powerful — in the Republican Party’s long-standing effort to “crush” (McConnell’s word) the grassroots constitutional conservative movement that threatens the privileged status of the Washington Brahmin caste, aka the American political establishment.

In 2014, the Tea Party had the temerity to challenge McConnell directly on his own home turf.  He did indeed crush them there, as he would happily crush them in the Senate.  His effort to annihilate the constitutionalist resistance was funded heavily by a nationwide group of donors affiliated with Karl Rove, who presumably shared McConnell’s and Rove’s desire to defend the establishment against the belligerent serfs who were daring to assert their liberty against its permanent privilege.

Donald Trump was a major donor to that effort.  He even threw another $10,000 into the pot in October 2014, to bring his total contribution to McConnell to more than $60,000.

Now he is attacking his primary rival, Ted Cruz, on the grounds that “Nobody in Congress likes him,” and, more specifically, that “you can’t call people liars on the Senate floor, when they’re your leader.”

Donald Trump is no longer making a generic accusation against Cruz’s demeanor or reputation.  He is slapping him on behalf of the Republican he has supported most generously, Mitch McConnell.  I have previously argued that Trump’s reputation as anti-establishment is all hot air, corresponding to nothing he has ever really done.  Here we have just one more clear example of that.

A conservative blogger friend recently suggested to me privately that he is not ready to reject outright the possibility that Trump is actually the establishment’s clever creation — that, after years of deepening threats from an increasingly serious constitutionalist faction within the GOP, the progressive Republicans may have surmised that the best path to victory is, as my friend puts it, to “run against themselves.”

Whether strategic or merely fortuitous, the alliance between Donald Trump and the GOP establishment, which has lurked verifiably behind Trump’s brash mask for years, has now become an open feature of his primary campaign.  And the chief target, Enemy Number One, of both parties in this alliance is Ted Cruz.  Cruz is “nasty” and “nobody likes him,” as Trump says, because he is brazenly defiant toward the GOP establishment’s leaders.

And you thought the whole point of being anti-establishment was to be brazenly defiant toward the establishment’s leaders.  Silly you.  Apparently, a real anti-establishment candidate would not donate $60,000 to Mitch McConnell’s “crush the Tea Party” campaign.

###end###

UPDATED: Organized Hit Job on Hillary

***Second Update below, January 12th
**First Update below, same day, January 7th

January 7, 2016
Monday, January 4th, everyone returned from vacation. During this vacation, the finishing touches on a plan had i’s dotted & t’s crossed. Think I’m being cynical? Consider the following:

Tuesday, January 5th

  • A former DOJ attorney says that sometime “in the next 60 days” Hillary Clinton will be recommended for indictment by FBI Director Comey and if Attorney General Lynch doesn’t bring it, there will be a massive, loud, and public insurrection among the agents, prominently featuring “leaks” of incriminating evidence.

Wednesday, January 6th

  • Biden gives an interview saying he “regrets everyday” he’s not running for President.
  • Mainstream media confirms that “@atensnut” is, indeed, Juanita Broderick’s Twitter account.  She retweets the following:

  • And – last but certainly not least for January 6th – more than one of the cable &  network evening news demonstrated conspicuously unusual vigor by digging up 1994 footage of then-President Clinton declaring peace in our time thanks to his* nuclear non-proliferation agreement with North Korea. Why are we talking about 1994 North Korea nukes? Because the Pudgepot dictator of the Hermit Kingdom couldn’t hide a 5.4 earthquake caused by his test of an “H-bomb.”

Thursday, January 7:

  • The money is drying up and The Los Angeles Times (where all those evergreen-Democrat Hollywood checkbooks are) is reporting it. And finally, from the Hollywood-for-Ugly-People paper, The Washington Post, more evidence of the consumption of Journalism-Viagra, a respectable showing of column-inches on “Bill’s Women.”Clintons Going Down2

I thought back in October 2015 when Vice President Biden stood in the Rose Garden with President Obama at his side to announce he would decline to run, that this was not the original plan and we were seeing something weird. Here’s how I imagined the conversation between Barack and Joe: “I’m not ready. I want to run, Barack, but I’m still just too broken-hearted over losing my son Beau. I will run. I just need more time.” At that point, they scrambled. The speech Joe gave, which everyone – to a man – agreed sounded more like a launch speech than a not-launch speech – was quickly edited and the plan re-jiggered. What was the plan? Let Hillary twist for a while longer. Let grandma bust her considerable ass campaigning, doing all the hard work securing those Democrat votes, and then, on indictment or “sudden illness” Hillary is out, Joe is in.  They presume, correctly, that Hillary votes will transfer to Joe without a hiccup. The last minute no-go? Eh. Not exactly the plan, but still a win.  Joe’s gets more time to heal and gain his strength, the Democrat votes have still been nurtured and secured, and Hillary’s investment in what she’s about to lose is even deeper – thus making the pain all the more acute. It’s like a little Machiavellian bonus. Everybody wins. Except Hillary. Which was the plan all along.

Now – here’s sub-plot nobody is talking about but I think is most definitely at work: this is a death-cage match between Hillary and Barack who hate, loathe, and detest each other. She’s got the goods on him and he knows it. (And he, clearly, has a nice, fat dossier on her.) Valerie Jarrett, Barack’s handler-consigliere-enforcer-brain, will take Hillary aside and tell her, “You want to avoid prison? You twist. You suffer until January 20, 2017 at 11:59am and Barack will give you a get-out-of-jail-free card. If you expose Barack you will die in prison. Got me, toots?”

Hillary Clinton: always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

*Wendy Sherman was at the negotiating table in 1994 for North Korea. You know where she was recently?  At the negotiating table for the Iran deal. Sleep tight!

**UPDATE 1 – January 7 – 7:23am
Heeeere we go! Now we’ve got LAW ENFORCEMENT sources, who, given the volume & specificity of the clues given in the article below, should be easy to track down, telling multiple reporters they have witnessed multiple occasions when Hillary’s HEALTH was disabling. If Hillary herself isn’t laying this groundwork as an eventual escape hatch, somebody sure is. Breitbart ain’t lefty, but people plant things in places without obvious fingerprints all the time.

The entire article is below.


 

Via January 6, 2016 Breitbart:

Law Enforcement Officials, Medical Professionals: There’s Something Seriously Wrong With Hillary Clinton’s Health

Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s disappearance from the debate stage last month left people speculating that the former First Lady took a long bathroom break, but now a law-enforcement source with inside connections is alleging that Clinton was missing from the stage due to health issues stemming from a previous brain injury.

These long-lasting symptoms stemming from a concussion and blood clot, according to a neurologist, suggest Clinton is suffering from post-concussion syndrome, which can severely impact her cognitive abilities.

All that said, however, Clinton’s campaign maintained to Breitbart News that she is in good health and can serve as President of the United States.

“Strong source just told me something I suspected. Hillary’s debate ‘bathroom break’ wasn’t that, but flare up of problems from brain injury,” wrote John Cardillo on Twitter.

Cardillo, who previously worked as an officer who provided VIP security details for the New York Police Department (NYPD), told Breitbart News that he knows of two additional sources who have commented about Clinton’s health problems, which have even impacted her ability to walk to her car after delivering a speech.

“I got this from both a [federal agent] … and I also got it from a New York [NYPD] guy who worked security at a Hillary event in New York City,” Cardillo told Breitbart News, adding:

These are two people that aren’t just personal friends. I worked with one and then post law-enforcement worked with another on some related things. So, these aren’t anonymous people. These are good friends. Both of them told me the same thing, that after her speeches, whether she did a talk or a policy speech, she had to sit behind – she would come off the podium backstage – and have to sit and rest before making it back to the car because she was so fatigued, dizzy and disoriented.

Cardillo said these two security officials don’t know each other and do not live in the same state, but “their stories were almost identical.”

One of the men told him that Clinton was “very pale, kind of disoriented. He said she looked like she was about to faint. She was very pale, almost sweaty.”

Cardillo said one of the incidents occurred while she was Secretary of State. The event worked by the NYPD official was roughly a year ago.

Veteran Republican strategist Roger Stone, who previously worked with GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, told Breitbart News that he has also heard about Clinton’s long-term health problems.

“A number of New York Democrats, very prominent, well-known, wealthy New York Democrats, told me last year that Hillary had very significant health issues and that they were surprised that she was running in view of her health problems and her lack of stamina,” Stone told Breitbart News. “So far, she’s run a very controlled campaign,”

“I don’t think she has the physical stamina to be president,” he stated. “I have no doubt that won’t call her on it, but Trump certainly would.”

“We also know that in the emails, of course, Huma Abedin… says that she is easily confused,” Stone added, referencing Clinton’s close confidant Abedin comment in an email, “She’s often confused,” referring to Clinton.

Trump, Stone’s former boss, certainly hasn’t been shy in questioning whether Clinton has the “stamina” to be president.

“She goes out and she sees you guys for about 10 minutes, she sees you for a little while, it’s all rehearsed and staged,” Trump said in a recent interview on Fox News’ Media Buzz.

“They’ll pick a couple of people out of the audience that are like, you know, 100 percent. She’ll sit around a little plastic table, they’ll talk to the people for a while. It’s ridiculous,” Trump added. “And then she goes away for five or six days and you don’t see her. She goes to sleep.”

Neurologist Dr. Daniel Kassicieh, D.O., reviewed news reports of Clinton’s head injury in light of the recent information revealed from the security sources that are raising questions about her current health status.

Kassicieh, who has run his own Sarasota, Florida, practice for 20 years, is a board-certified neurologist and the medical director of the Florida Headache and Movement Disorder Center. He is a doctor of osteopathic medicine, which is similar to a medical doctor but can involve at a minimum of 100 more classroom hours of specific training. That additional training is focused on the osteopathic—or the musculoskeletal system—aspects of medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (FAAN) and a Fellow of the American College of Neuro-psychiatrists (FACN). Kassicieh is a registered Republican in Sarasota, but his purely medical analysis is troubling for Clinton.

“They were trying to poo-poo this off as a minor concussion, but I would just say that reading it and trying to take all the politics out of it, and just read it purely from a medical standpoint,” Kassicieh explained:

Considering the point of what happened with Hillary over this time period… the timeline… and then what has happened here more recently… the break at the debate, I saw that and even the commentators that were sitting there made a comment that, ‘Gee, that seems awful long for a break.’ Just looking at it from a neurological standpoint, the risk factors for developing post-concussion syndrome, one of them is age, and she was 65 when this happened… just from a physiologic standpoint that’s an older individual. Being female is a risk factor for post-concussion syndrome as well.

“For someone who has treated many post-concussion syndrome patients and that’s what I really believe she’s suffering from based on reading these reports and reading what’s happened,” Kassicieh said. “I think she has latent post-concussion syndrome, and I can understand that as a politician they would want to be covering that up.” He stated:

I would say as a neurologist having seen many post-concussion syndrome patients that I would not want a president who I knew had post-concussion syndrome being president because their super high-level cognitive abilities are clearly impaired and even their routine multitasking high-stress abilities are affected because post-concussion syndrome patients in general don’t tolerate even moderate work, stress-related environments.

Kassicieh added that if suffering from post concussion syndrome, Clinton’s symptoms could appear “well beyond a year” after her concussion.

“A transverse sinus thrombosis [blood clot] is a rare condition of a clot forming in the venous sinus cavities surrounding the brain,” Kassicieh told Breitbart News, referencing an ABC News report from 2012 that detailed Clinton’s head injury and blood clot following a fall. He explained:

These venous sinuses drain blood out of the brain. The [injury] incidence is only about 3 per 1,000,000 adults. The transverse sinus is less commonly affected than the main sagittal venous sinus. The cause of transverse sinus clots is not well understood although trauma and dehydration have been described as risk factors. Mrs. Clinton suffered from both.

Dr. Nicholas C. Bambakidis also analyzed the facts for Breitbart News. He is he director of cerebrovascular and skull base surgery, and the program director of neurological surgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and a professor of neurosurgery and radiology at the CWRU School of Medicine in Cleveland,

“These types of clots are usually formed spontaneously without an obvious cause,” Bambakidis said in an email:

They can be associated with dehydration, a predisposition to blood clotting disorders, are more common in women and may be associated with oral contraceptive medication, severe head trauma, brain surgery, or infection. If untreated, they can progress and lead to bleeding in the brain or swelling, and a stroke or even death. The treatment is generally anticoagulation and treatment of any underlying cause.

Bambakidis said that if treated early and quickly, there are no longstanding issues with a person’s health.

“Typically, if caught early and treated adequately (as seems to have been done in this incident) there is a full recovery without any consequences (normal cognition, memory, etc),” he said.

Dr. Jane Orient, the executive director of the politically conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons also reviewed the 2012 ABC News report about Clinton’s concussion and blood clot. She said she thought the ABC report appeared medically accurate.

“Factors predisposing to clots include air travel, dehydration, hormones, immobilization as during surgery, blood abnormalities, cancer,” Orient said. “Concussions can cause long-term damage including cognitive problems, even when standard studies including CT or MRI look normal.”

“Not saying Mrs. Clinton has any of the above–just speaking generally and hypothetically,” she clarified.

One former member of Orient’s group is , an ophthalmologist. He was a member of AAPS for more than 20 years before his election to the U.S. Senate. He is now also running for president on the Republican side in 2016.

Neurologist Kassicieh agreed with Orient about the possibility of Clinton suffering from long-term cognitive symptoms.

“Concussions in older adults can be more serious, resulting in a condition known as post-concussion syndrome. This condition can be characterized by symptoms of persistent dizziness, complaints of memory difficulties, forgetfulness, loss of ability to focus on complex tasks or concepts and indecisiveness,” Kassicieh explained. He added, “Latent depression and overt anxiety are also common in this condition.”

Kassicieh noted that although a Clinton spokesperson told the press that Clinton “got over this quickly,” another ABC report quotes former President Bill Clinton saying that his wife’s injury “required six months of very serious work to get over.”

“Other reports in the same article show an interesting timeline for Hillary over the next several months, showing that she was not fully functional in her capacity as [Secretary of State],” Kassicieh added:

As a neurologist, I would interpret these and more recent events involving Hillary as possibly showing signs of post-concussion syndrome. This condition could have serious impact on the cognitive and intellectual functioning of an individual, particularly a high level job as [President of the United States].

Dr. Drew Pinsky, a nationally syndicated talk show host and internal medical physician, also spoke to Breitbart News about Clinton’s health and explained that experiencing symptoms for more than a year after a head injury is very serious.

“In my clinical experience, it’s very common for them to have six months and even up to a year of exercise intolerance, and sort of [needing] frequent rest, and can easily get overwhelmed,” he said of head injury patients. “But after a year, that’s something else.”

He said symptoms like Clinton’s, as an elderly person in her 60s, “are very serious.”

“Those are not trivial symptoms,” Pinsky stressed:

If my patient came in with that, the first thing I would do is put them on a treadmill. I would get a sleep study, make sure they don’t have sleep apnea. I would do all sorts of metabolic studies and make sure there wasn’t something metabolic. I would actually do some extensive cancer screenings. Why is this person suddenly having exercise intolerance?

Pinsky added that if Clinton is overworking herself, “I hope she has a medical team attending to her.”

Breitbart News sent a detailed set of questions regarding these questions raised by law enforcement and medical professionals to Clinton’s campaign.

The specific questions sent to Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton, include:

1.) Does Secretary Clinton have difficulty with fatigue, dizziness and being disoriented? Does she have difficulty after speeches and during debates continuing for lengthy periods of time–or for instance walking back to her car after events?

2.) Is she suffering from latent post concussion syndrome?

3.) Is she being completely honest with the public about her health? Does she have a clean bill of health?

4.) Is she able to conduct high level cognitive abilities on the same level she has been able to throughout her life? Is she able to conduct routine multitasking high stress abilities on the same level she has been able to throughout her life?

5.) Does she have or did she have a transverse sinus thrombosis, or blood clot?

6.) Is she capable of serving as President of the United States with these conditions and symptoms?

7.) Has she done tests with a doctor on a treadmill? Has she gotten a doctor-supervised sleep study? Has she worked with a doctor on metabolic studies? Has she gotten cancer screenings?

8.) Does she have a medical team attending to her? What are the details of that?

In response, Merrill told Breitbart News that Clinton’s doctors have already answered the questions in Clinton’s health statement.

“These questions are all addressed in her health statement,” Merrill told Breitbart News, referring to a letter from Clinton’s doctor, Dr. Lisa Bardack—the chair of internal medicine at the Mount Kisco Medical Group in New York.

The letter, labeled a “healthcare statement” and dated on July 28, 2015—which was released along with Clinton’s tax filings—is two full pages long and includes a complete description from Dr. Bardack clearing Clinton as fit to serve as president.

“This letter summarizes the health history and current medical evaluation of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” Dr. Bardack wrote. “I am an internist and the Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Mount Kisco Medical Group in Mount Kisco, New York. I have served as Mrs. Clinton’s personal physician since 2001, during which time I have been involved in all aspects of her healthcare.”

The letter states that Clinton is a “healthy 67-year-old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies.”

“Her past medical history is notable for a deep vein thrombosis in 1998 and in 2009, an elbow fracture in 2009 and a concussion in 2012,” Dr. Bardack continues.

“In December of 2012, Mrs. Clinton suffered a stomach virus after traveling, became dehydrated, fainted and sustained a concussion,” the doctor wrote:

During follow-up evaluations, Mrs. Clinton was found to have a transverse sinus venous thrombosis and began anti-coagulation therapy to dissolve the clot. As a result of the concussion, Mrs. Clinton also experienced double vision for a period of time and benefitted from wearing glasses with a Fresnel Prism. Her concussion symptoms, including the double vision, resolved within two months and she discontinued the use of the prism. She had follow-up testing in 2013, which revealed complete resolution of the effects of the concussion as well as total dissolution of the thrombosis. Mrs. Clinton also tested negative for all clotting disorders. As a precaution however, it was decided to continue her on daily anticoagulation.

The letter continues by detailing her current medication list, which includes Armour Thyroid—a hormone used to treat an under-active thyroid– plus various antihistamines, Vitamin B12 and the blood-thinner Coumadin.

“She was also advised in 1998 to take Lovenox, a short-acting blood thinner, when she took extended flights; this medication was discontinued when she began Coumadin,” Dr. Bardack continued:

Her Coumadin dose is monitored regularly and she has experienced no side effects from her medications. She takes no other medications on a regular basis and has no known drug allergies. She does not smoke and drinks alcohol occasionally. She does not use illicit drugs or tobacco products. She eats a diet rich in lean protein, vegetables and fruits. She exercises regularly, including yoga, swimming, walking and weight training.

Dr. Bardack noted that Clinton’s family history also complicates matters: her father “lived into his 80s and died after having a stroke” while her mother “lived into her 90s and passed away after having congestive heart failure.” One of her brothers—it’s not clear whether it’s Tony or Hugh Rodham, according to this letter—“had premature heart disease,” Dr. Bardack wrote.

“Due to her family history, she underwent a full cardiac evaluation, which was negative,” the doctor wrote. “She had a coronary calcium score of zero and a normal carotid ultrasound.”

She’s also had cancer screenings: “Her routine health maintenance is up to date, and has included a normal colonoscopy, gynecologic exam, mammogram, and breast ultrasound.”

She had a physical on March 21, 2015, which revealed, according to Dr. Bardack, that Clinton was in top-notch health.

“In summary, Mrs. Clinton is a healthy female with hypothyroidism and seasonal allergies, on long-term anticoagulation,” Dr. Bardack wrote. “She participates in a healthy lifestyle and has had a full medical evaluation, which reveals no evidence of additional medical issues or cardiovascular disease. Her cancer screening evaluations are all negative. She is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as President of the United States.”

Clinton’s own campaign manager Robby Mook wouldn’t commit during a mid-June 2015 interview on CBS’s Face The Nation to release Clinton’s full health records.

“I will let Hillary decide that,” Mook replied when John Dickerson asked him if Clinton would release her full healthcare records. “But I can tell you she has been hitting the campaign trail hard.”

The letter from Clinton’s doctor—not her full healthcare records, but just a mere statement—came after that Mook interview.

### end ###


***UPDATE 2 – January 12 – 3:10am (I know, I know… But I was up!)

Well, well, well… Looky here. Look what’s splashed nice and big across The Drudge Report.

Drudge Hillary 1 When you click it, it only gets worse.

Drudge Hillary 2

Grandma’s not going to like this. Better hide the ashtrays.

###end###

Grace Embrace

There is something about birthdays. And New Year days. And growing older.

And when they converge.  Maybe not exactly on the same day, but in an era, or epoch in one’s life. Add in my mother’s death in February 2015 and I think I can safely say the last 10 months have been transformative.  The trifecta of losing mom, turning 50, and the calendar turning to 2016 seems to have had a cumulative effect on me. Without my consent. Well, it’s not that I don’t welcome it, or like it; I do. It’s that I didn’t ask for it. None of these things were within my control. They just… happened. In proximity to one another. And the weight of them has fallen upon me like the sheerest silk cardigan; a garment that lays upon me loosely, lightly.  It doesn’t appear, on it’s face, to have any practical purpose, but it’s there. On me. And it matters. It kind of… pulls the whole outfit together, if you will;  what I was wearing was fine, but until I put on that sheer silk cardigan, it just kinda… laid there. Being clothes. Ordinary clothes. Then poof! The entire ensemble became more than the sum of its parts.

Of course, I chose to put it on. And I can choose to take it off. It could snag. The whole thing is really rather fragile. But there it is.

I seem to have made a decision to be happy. And it seems to be every bit a choice as choosing a garment. That’s why I think of it this way. And that’s why I describe this choice to be happy as silk, as a silk finishing piece. Because if I’m to wear this “happy uniform” every day I will have to choose it. Affirmatively choose it, and I seem to have been mugged by this desire to do it! That’s why I call it a “grace embrace.” Calling it a “grace mugging” just sounds wrong, doesn’t it? But it’s kind of like that. I didn’t “ask” for this, but I feel helpless to not take it up and choose it.

People have told me over the years that the reason Kaela, my autistic child, has come so far and done so well is that I wasn’t in denial about her.  I remember the first time someone said that to me, I was shocked. “What do you mean ‘I’m not in denial’? You mean other parents are?” And, remarkably, the answer was yes!

Maybe it came from radio. Aircheck sessions are raw examinations of one’s talent and they’re roughly analogous to going to the dentist. Or the gynecologist. It’s all there. Naked. Or un-flossed. And there’s no hiding. You sit there in your radio bosses’ office once a week with a tape of your show and they tell you how much you suck. It’s awful. And when you suck on the radio everyone knows it and there’s no taking it back. It’s live and thousands of people hear you screw up. So if you don’t know how to stand up to criticism, and learn from it, you will never, ever make it in the radio biz.

Same thing with pain. C.S. Lewis wrote extensively about pain, and what it has to teach us. Kaela* and aircheck sessions and pain are all of a piece in my mind: they have something to teach us by their truths. They are what they are and you’d better pay attention.

So this “decision” to be happy, the silk cardigan I have found in my closet I will choose to put on everyday feels risky to me. How do you “choose” to ignore pain? Oftentimes the truth is there. Won’t that make you one of those “in denial” parents I was so shocked to hear about? I don’t want to be “that guy.” I don’t want to be in denial, but dammit! I’m 50. My mother (and best friend – other than my husband) is dead, and if I’m going to spend my sunset years in peace, maybe I should stop letting life hurt me, you know? I mean… I’m not in radio anymore. And I’m 99.99% sure I never will be again, so it’s not like I have any aircheck sessions in my future. If I want to batten down the hatches, I can.

I guess I’m just sick of having my buttons pushed. Having scabs picked at. Letting the rain in, rotting the wood. Beating myself up! Enough already.

Right?

*For the record, my darling Kaela is a joy!