Another Week: Number 97

Trump degenerates further in campaign’s final week

On Sunday, Donald J. Trump held his big campaign finale at Madison Square Garden. Aside from the obvious parallels to the 1939 Nazi rally at the previous Madison Square Garden, it was an off-putting parade of raunch and rancor from a D-list of assorted speakers — for example, Hulk Hogan was followed by Dr. Phil.

The big story from the event was some insult comic declaring the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico “garbage” — but that was only one of many vile and obnoxious statements made from the Trump/Vance lectern.

At the same rally, Trump vowed to let Robert Kennedy Jr. “go wild” running America’s health policy. To me, putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of vaccines, among other things, seems like a plan to make polio great again.

On Wednesday, Trump rallied in Green Bay and added several more gaffes that dogged him for days. As Tim Walz described it, ”He damn near killed himself” trying to climb into a Trump-branded garbage truck. And then the 78-year-old adjudicated rapist told his supporters that ”whether the women like it or not,” he’s going to protect them.

On Thursday in Arizona, three and a half months after surviving an assassination attempt, draft-dodging Donald Trump fantasized about “nine barrels shooting at” former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney to see how quickly she would lose her courage for battle.

Onstage Friday night in Milwaukee’s Fiserve Forum, Trump mocked the ethnicity of Milwaukee’s basketball superstar and had another of his increasingly frequent fits about microphones — pantomiming oral sex at the mic stand like a 10-year-old.

His demented mind is crumbling onstage, on camera, day by day — and yet the polls show the race tied “closer than two coats of paint,” as I heard someone describe it.

Anyway, that’s the neat narrative the news media has been grooming for months.

I have a different assessment. I keep telling my sister about Kansas two years ago. Days before that election, polls showed “a close race,” with the anti-abortion side leading by four points.

They lost by 18. In Kansas.

We’ll see what happens in all 50 states on Tuesday — but on Saturday night, one interesting cowlick suddenly sprang up. The Des Moines Register‘s Iowa Poll found Kamala Harris ahead 47% to 44% in a state that has never been among the seven universally accepted battleground states this year.

Please do whatever might help.

Halloween 2024

Of the two of us, it was Amy who most enjoyed passing out trick-or-treat candy — but we both got a kick out of participating as part of our neighborhood.

Our first year, we were still moving in, so we dressed all in black in our dark house and wore stockings over our heads. We answered the door with flashlights and told the kids we were the burglars, but they were welcome to some candy as well.

In 2009, we dressed up as Frankenstein’s bride and monster.

Now years have passed. Neighbor kids have become adults with jobs. Amy is gone.

But after I mentioned to my sister that I still kind of wanted to turn my light on, she delivered a big bag of candy from Menards and I installed a new lighted doorbell button.

Trick-or-treating was from 5 to 7 p.m. — Thursday’s last hour of daylight and first hour of darkness. The cold northwest wind was ripping down the street. If there were any other lights lit on my block, I could not see them.

Callers came in clusters. I portioned out the goodies the best I could and ended up with about a dozen extra pieces.

A total of 33 kids showed up. They wore cute costumes. One recited the whole “smell my feet, give me something good to eat” verse. All of them said “Thank you” and “Happy Halloween.”