“So afraid of where I’m going, so in love with where I’ve been.”

The line above was written by an inmate at the county jail where we work, used lyrically to describe repeating cycles of addiction leading to repeated incarceration. The show was called “A Place at the Table,” a modern-day retelling of the myth of Sisyphus, the guy in Greek mythology who is damned for eternity never to get it right.

“So afraid of where I’m going. So in love with where I’ve been” also describes a lens through which I view our world this solstice/Full Moon day.

People are struggling with uncertainty in a world where everything changes and moves so fast, yet we track information on the web — a source that comes at us with information at the force, volume and velocity of a fire hose as opposed to a drinking fountain. Too much to take in and absorb all at once, and too little room for reflection on what is really true.

However, there’s plenty of time for reaction…upon reaction…upon reaction. So much so that the reaction becomes fact and the fuel for our argument and distraction — and not the meaning, which drifts further off the moorings. For everyone, life has been offering us big tests of our capacity for grief, patience, tolerance and compassion. We’re walking uphill in a world that has changed rapidly politically, economically and demographically over the last decade.

In the instance of the Orlando shooting case, the ham-handed simplicity with which we’ve traditionally gauged and assessed who causes terror is being challenged. For now, that is a good thing. The Club Pulse shootings happened a week ago, and it’s hard to pinpoint which facet of Omar Mateen’s life places him in the pigeonhole of a mass shooter or a terrorist on a rampage like we always do. Is he like an Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook), Charleston shooter Dylann Roof, or one of the Tsarnaev brothers? Or is he something altogether different?

Mateen’s Afghan heritage and Muslim faith collided with his online presence on gay dating sites, his inclusion on the US “no-fly list” and his conflicted membership in both Hezbollah and ISIS (two opposing forces in Middle East conflicts). Mateen’s recent deadly outburst in Orlando left us all questioning his motives. Was his violent behavior a single-minded act of terror? Or was he living out our country’s cultural, gender and political wars as they resided inside one body — his own. In any case, he should not have had access to a semi-automatic weapon.

Catapulted by events in Orlando, we begin the week in the US with a vote on an amendment that would allow law enforcement to block firearm sales for national security reasons in narrow circumstances. In other words: no one on a Department of Homeland Security watch list should be able to purchase a semi-automatic weapon.

That it’s taken 15 years post 9-11 to happen is shocking anywhere else but in America. Since Americans ‘need guns to put away terrorists’, any weapons-sale ban or background check would have been in violation of our Second Amendment rights, and of our ‘need’ to protect ourselves because of, er, terror.

Also this week, the UK prepares for the EU Referendum, also known as the “Brexit” vote. It takes place Thursday, June 23, exactly one week after Labour MP Jo Cox’s murder by Thomas Mair, who shouted “Britain First” — the cry of the anti-immigrant Far-Right nationalist group of the same name, who support the “Leave” (the EU) movement — as he attacked her.

Mair has been described as an “isolated man with some psychological problems” who was stirred by the same white nationalism that fuels much of Donald Trump’s political support in America — a fear of the other. Mair has also been involved with the National Alliance, an American Neo-Nazi group.

The overall aggressive anti-immigrant tone of this referendum has raised concerns, amplified by Cox’s murder. The moderation of that tone and atmosphere coming on the heels of Cox’s death is now about to be tested by Trump’s planned visit to Britain the day after the referendum.

Certainly, we may be so afraid of where we’re going and so in love with where we’ve been that we screw this phase in time up again. But this is no time for fear. It’s time for reflection on our existing fears using the light of a bright Cancer Sun and a sober Capricorn Moon to see them in full light.

As grieving for the dead continues, feelings bubbling underneath the surface over the last few weeks and months have potential to release their pressure. Maybe we can begin to find a way to solutions that make this world a welcoming, peaceful place for all of us. Maybe we can embrace a little more complexity in our lives as this world changes over time.

It seems a good time for knowing fears exist yet setting them aside, placing ourselves on the correct path regardless of fear, and pushing our load up so we reach the summit of our ideals of living fearlessly on the ever-changing planet. And yes, maybe we screw this up yet again, but maybe at the very least, we could absorb the lessons of the tests we face. A teachable moment is upon us. Can we rise to the occasion?

The Planet Waves Boutique has plenty of balm for your soul. Come pay us a visit, put your feet up, and enjoy discovering all the wonderful readings we have to offer.

I was going to entitle today’s column: “California, Just Freaking Vote Already!!!”, but since I don’t control either the electorate or time, I have been trying to be patient during this waiting period for the California primary to end on June 7.

Regarding this primary season from hindsight, the Democratic presidential primary was decided back in March, when Hillary Clinton gained a majority of votes and pledged delegates after Super Tuesday.

This lead was firmly ensconced in New York, which voted for Clinton near the end of April. Bernie Sanders, in second place, is a little less than 300 delegates behind the presumptive nominee. Clinton will more than likely get enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination no later than June 14, if not earlier, by way of the California and New Jersey primaries. Yet, Sanders still plans to fight until the last vote is cast.

Why is Bernie still fighting? Framing his political situation in baseball terms, Sanders is at bat in the bottom of the 9th inning, with one man on base in a game where the score is 5-1 in favor of the pitching team, with two outs and the count is 2 balls and 2 strikes. And yet, he is still trying to get a hit.

At this pace, he will either strike out, walk if the pitching collapses, hit one RBI or hit a home run. The odds are high that even in the best of circumstances, he will not score enough to win the game. But at this stage, with his persistence, you have to think winning the nomination is probably not his aim.

You are probably catching news of Sanders entreating and getting the Democratic National Committee to include a delegation of four pro-Sanders representatives to sit on the convention planning committee, which includes Dr. Cornell West, a far-left leaning leader in the African American community and outspoken critic of President Obama. Sanders’ campaign legal team also wrote to the DNC to remove Barney Frank as chair of the convention, for what many gather as a longstanding feud and rivalry between the two during Frank’s time in Congress.

Sanders’ team lost that one. But he is right to persist fighting to the end, as he promised. If not for votes, then for ideas that could improve the process of electing our presidential candidates.

As an Independent running for the first time as a Democrat, Sanders questioned the ‘eccentric’ ways Democrats go about selecting Presidential nominees. Why did Hillary gain more delegates than Sanders in states she lost? Why do we still have caucuses in some states, and open or closed primaries in others? Why are delegates apportioned the way they are? And why do Superdelegates still exist? 

For that matter, let’s take this further: why is gerrymandering still allowed to assure a single party majority in one state? Why can’t there be a mandatory voting day on a Sunday when people have time to vote, as President Obama suggested?

As it stands today, awarding correctly apportioned delegates in states Bernie won would not make any difference — Hillary is leading in every other metric from caucuses to closed and open primaries, pledged delegates and popular vote. If that Sanders delegate re-apportionment was to happen now, Clinton’s lead in pledged delegates would not change so drastically that the result would flip. She would still be the nominee.

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But Sanders is right in pointing out that even though many of these state nominating processes were created to address unfairness or inequity in the past, the way we select nominees to the Presidency of the United States has grown archaic, seemingly corrupt and appears ultimately unfair to the voters.

Yet it’s an absolute cash cow for every news network looking for the next month’s campaign ad buys. Like they do for most products. Which is probably the reason things are as they stand. At least for now. We like to crystallize business ideas into profit-making entities in America, and we have turned our politics of life, death and taxes into a money making machine for the networks. We know who owns those. These are the wheels that keep grinding away at our will to make the most important decision in our little section of the world.

If nothing else comes from the Sanders candidacy, we should be grateful that he’s drawn attention to this major — if not dangerous — flaw in the political machinery of our ‘democracy’. We have an 18th Century machine in the 21st Century — and we’re paying lots of money for it. The machine includes the electoral college, the two-party system, and our founding fathers’ good intentions when they were drawing up the map of the new nation.

Back then we were a mostly rural country ruled by white property owners, and a very large part of our citizenry were not citizens but in custody as slaves; women were consigned to the roles of baby maker and consort. Looking at that history now, have we come any further? Bernie Sanders’ campaign may soon be over, yet good ideas remain from his challenges to our traditional way of doing things, and the way we’ve used those traditions to hold on to power. Just because we did it before doesn’t mean it should work now, and 46% of the voters in the Democratic presidential nominating primaries agree. The DNC better be listening.

Not all ideas stand the test of time. But good ideas should. Like a democratic republic in every sense of the word, one that represents this country and its people who are far different from what we were when we started more than two centuries ago.

After the first Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” 

Have we kept our republic? You tell me. Because, thanks to this primary process in 2016, we can look from the stands and realize that the last batter up is really us, neck-deep in a full count, three balls and two strikes. We’re in a game with serious consequences for the country and the world.

What’s at stake is how much our individual votes do matter for this republic. And how much more they could matter if we fight to make all votes count, from primary to Presidential. Not for Bernie’s team or Hillary’s team now, but for us. And we’re going to need every vote this year to fight what could be the end game. More on that next week. See you in the comments.

I wasn’t surprised when Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for President after his overwhelming victory in the Indiana primary. What was more stunning to me was that, according to the rules and tradition in the presidential playoffs, Mr. Trump would be afforded what was his due as the Republican front-runner: a briefing by the CIA.

Now what will a briefing by the CIA entail?

Whatever the current President of the United States will allow. That could be an overview, or a more nuanced report. It could withhold information vital to the safety and security of the United States and its allies, or it could provide a sweeping overview of our country’s position and stance on certain hot spots as they stand now.

Whether it be a full-bore detailed account or a perfunctory bullet-point Power Point presentation, however vague or detailed the White House wants the CIA to get with Mr. Trump’s briefing, there’s no doubt any information afforded the Donald would run out his non-stop mouth at exactly the wrong time and with exactly the right amount of empty-headedness that we have come to expect. In other words, like a four-year-old running around the house with a very sharp pair of scissors.

I hope to provide some re-assurance to our readers from across the planet that we Americans are a bit stunned that Trump has made it thus far, and that he is offered this unique opportunity to get in on the information base of the world’s darkest spooks.

When I read about this in Daily Kos, it was enough to make me email Eric and Amanda with concern about this CIA briefing rule. I had a tightness building in my chest. As a former intelligence expert said: “It’s not an unreasonable concern that he’ll talk publicly about what’s supposed to stay in that room.”

That concern was noted by the White House press corps when asking White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest about the issue: What information would President Obama allow to be shared with the US’s leading blowhard? Earnest referred to the response by National Intelligence Director James Clapper. Clapper had said, in response to a question from The Daily Beast at a meeting with reporters in Washington last week:

“We have already established a plan for briefing both candidates when they are named, and certainly after November when the president-elect is known, and it gets more intensive.”

Asked what precautions the intelligence community would take to ensure that any classified information the candidates received was not mishandled, Clapper said that the briefings, per custom, would be given in a secure facility wherever it was most convenient for the nominees, and according to their schedule. In 2008, Sen. Barack Obama was briefed by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell at an FBI building in Chicago, the city where he also had his campaign headquarters.

Once a briefer is chosen to meet with the nominees, the intelligence director’s office will “oversee [the process] to ensure that everybody gets the same information and that we do comply with the needs to protect sources and methods and comply with security rules.”

The White House response did not provide any reassurance from Mr. Clapper’s response, and you have to wonder why.

Given Trump’s propensity for saying whatever the hell he wants — because God knows he’s safe on the 52nd floor of his huuuge Trump-built skyscraper and screw everybody else — it’s reasonable to believe that there HAS to be some sort of safeguard for the man who eschews the rules of propriety, decency and human compassion, let alone national security. Which leads me past the already fantastical reality presented in this article to a few conspiracy theories of my own.

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There’s a world of ratfuckery that the CIA has perpetrated on other political players — nationally and internationally — that they could also do to He-Who-Cannot-Be-Controlled.

It actually might be fun to sift through what the Donald will say about foreign policy post-briefing to see if there are trigger words, placed in his brain like some kind of Manchurian Candidate, that set off a campaign implosion or cause a national security risk.

He could well do that on his own, without the CIA’s help. Good God, he’s done it before. He’s doing damage to himself by just using his own lips.

Heaven help us for the repercussions when Donald opens his mouth — briefed or not. The adulation of crowds is a drug to a narcissist, who, when given the stage and the opportunity to be loved no matter what he says, can and will slip.

Good job, Republican Party, for introducing us to Sarah Palin in 2008 and for embracing the Tea Party in 2010. This is who we get because of it. Now, we have to send intention to the goddamned CIA, the national intelligence community AND especially the voters to make sure Mr. Stubby Fingers doesn’t press the red button, with his hands or his mouth. Even before and if heaven forbid he takes office.

This is a real Fe-911 — as in the call-in-case of emergency kind of 9-11 — signing off. See you in the comments.

While enjoying last year’s Thanksgiving at my sister’s in-laws, the peril of the Trump campaign and potential presidency revealed itself.

While we were enjoying our pre-meal wine and appetizers in a lovely home in Oakland’s Piedmont hills, Sam, a bright young man in his early twenties, pulled a red trucker’s cap with its gold lettering: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN”

“No.” That was the first word to come out of my mouth. “No, Sam,” I said, shaking my head. “You cannot be serious.”

He looked at me blankly. Suddenly I felt ill.

He said, “But he will make American great again!”

Who was I talking to here at the family dinner? I have watched our cousin Sam since he was a baby. My niece and nephew Nikko and Felicia played with him at my sister’s farm. Sam has since grown into a handsome young man who is earning his degree in international studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara. Fluent in Arabic, he spent last summer in the Middle East, and has a future in the diplomatic corps if he continues as he is.

All these facts swirled around my head, churning both head and gut into a bout of existential nausea when I heard our Sam — our brilliant, handsome Sam — utter the campaign slogan of “He Who Must Not be Named,” wearing the cap no less. And smiling.

I had to check in — was he kidding me? No. He seemed serious. He had a dismissive attitude towards the other candidates in both parties. I could understand why. But my adamant stance against Sam’s pronouncement was going against the unwritten, unspoken rule among my generation of family members: we do not squash, but listen to our kids’ opinions even when we disagree.

It took every measure of patience I had to climb down off the tree a little and calmly remind Sam that too many people, probably people that he knows already, will be hurt by what Trump does — or instigates other people to do. I reminded him that he should be familiar with Trump’s kind of demagoguery, if he’s studied world history as his major suggests. Voting for Trump certainly makes his Deadhead parents recoil.

I remember my own idealism at Sam’s age, and reminded myself that we created a world of shelter, safety and security that allowed kids like Nikko, Felicia and Sam the privilege to make whatever decisions they wanted — because they would not be affected by it. In raising these kids surrounded by comfort, stability and anticipated upward social mobility, perhaps what we neglected to do was involve them in the larger consequences of our choices and preferences.

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People we don’t see are hurt by the ramifications of our actions, our consumption and our economy. For a vast majority of us here and for the rest of the world, the choice of the U.S. President is, unfortunately, too important to decide cavalierly. People are hurt by our vote. We can see that more plainly and on an hourly basis through the Internet.

After Thanksgiving dinner, Sam and I talked about the situation in Turkey, comparing and contrasting Erdogan’s stance to Putin’s, and how we in the U.S. just don’t understand how the Middle East rolls. We don’t understand how the rest of the world rolls.

Even though I stopped pursuing our disagreement about Trump from earlier that evening, I felt quietly relieved that Sam is bright enough and thoughtful enough to consider the whole world in his own voting decisions — now and in the future. And, I am not going to be in the world long enough to watch what happens thirty to forty years from now. He will be. So will Nikko and Felicia.

But I won’t be helpless or inactive. I will make my decisions too. The world is still wide enough for all of us to form the dynamic that will break or make this world. There’s years to come where we’ll see what kind of world we will be creating — starting this year. For all our sakes, here and abroad, I hope it’s the latter. I want that feather in my cap before I go out.