Sunlight Disinfectant

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. First of all, it is SO MUCH FASTER just to accept what your government tells you is the truth and get on with your life. All that free time I can use to watch YouTube videos watching people reacting to shows I've already watched so that I can go "Ha, yeah, I felt like that too, friend(s)!" I could direct my energy to plumbing the depths of the dark web to learn the truth about contrails or whatever the fuck, but instead I'm busy defying the Creeping Olds by using the internet to create deep, real, unidirectional human connection. In your face, grandpa, I'm making friends! And someday they'll be just as aware of me as I am of them. Someday.

Secondly, if I'm covering my windows with aluminum foil, it's going to be as a shitty and pointless attempt to hold off the encroaching hellification of America's weather, not as a shitty and pointless attempt to keep government mind-rays out of my really boring thoughts about women's beach volleyball or whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.* Go ahead, bore in, psychic intruders, and I do mean bore. I can tell you off the top of my head what the difference is between the House of Fingolfin and the House of Finarfin. It's not useless nerd trivia, it's pre-emptive mental self-defense. If any thought-stealers can get through that noise to whatever it is they got into my brain to prise out in the first place, as far as I'm concerned, they've earned it fair and square. Go with God.

And if it's not mind-reading the government is after but mind-control, ugh... frankly, I'd welcome a little bit of relief from the burden of having to make all my own decisions. Two weeks ago at Target I bought a pair of socks that look like slices of watermelon just because they were on steeply discounted sale. I could clearly use the help at this point.

What I'm saying is that I'm not prone to read sinister subtlety into pretty straightforward situations, nor do I immediately ascribe nefarious intent to events or phenomena I do not completely understand (either by coincidence or by stubborn choice). Maybe it's optimistic naivete, who knows? Maybe the government really is dropping chemicals on us from airplane contrails, but did anyone ever stop to speculate as to whether they might be good chemicals? Like berry-flavored hookah smoke or some kind of aerosolized delicious pineapple juice cocktail? I'm just saying if you're going to use your imagination to fabricate the details to fill in the gaps of your knowledge, why limit yourself to darkness and fear? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but maybe it's one of those joke ones that explode? Sure, those fall into the category of a 1920s-style humor predicated on human cruelty (see also: joy buzzers), but after we recover from the shock and upset of an explosion in the very near proximity to the face of someone we ostensibly like, I'm sure we'll all find a way to laugh about it someday.

So I've been skeptical about the Donald-Trump-is-a-Russian-plant thread for a while, but even a skeptic like myself--the most honest kind, driven by laziness and distraction--is starting to wonder. I mean, yeah, there appear to be all these self-reported deep financial ties between Trump businesses and Russian oligarch money, OK. But the key word there is "self-reported" which, given Trump's record of trying to explain his business, leans in the direction more boring, ignorable hyperbole of the typical Trumpian model.

But then he talks about not honoring our traditional commitment to NATO. And now it's pretty clear that his most senior political advisory staff has a history of consulting for hardline pro-Russian causes in the Ukraine. And then Putin's government has a history of buttering up receptive Western leaders with a combination of money and flattery, developing an asset the way an experienced intelligence agent might, in exchange (either directly or by influence, not entirely sure) for Moscow-friendly positions on things like military interventions and an empire reconstitution plan.

I don't know. It's hard to get too worked up I guess as there have been many more than one instance of the U.S. intervening directly in a foreign electoral process, so there's a sad, if appropriate, symmetry to the idea. And recent events seem to suggest we probably won't have to worry too much about a Trump presidency in real terms anyway.

Unless there's an "October surprise" to do with hacked email accounts that may or may not involve direct Russian intervention in our election, past the not-always-subtle hand-jobbing of an overtly hand-jobbable GOP candidate.

But how much of this is succumbing to the conspiracy theories and how much of it is just regular election-year anxiety wherein I refuse to let myself relax until the Wednesday morning in November after the results are announced? I needed a lot of help in 2012 to get through the Romney threat. There's a much larger and consistent polling gap than 2012, but it's hard to trust unabashed good news over this long a period as Trump has slid, like a dead bullfrog, since the DNC ended. It sure feels like there should be something coming, especially with so long to go still. But maybe it won't necessarily be something bad. Like instead of President Dead Bullfrog, it's dead bullfrog ice cream for everyone.

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*This has been covered a lot elsewhere. I hate to tip my position as I'm afraid it would alienate at least half of my audience, which at this point must number in the ones of people.