Isn’t it nice when sometimes, whether you’re a boomer or not, you can read the world just from the weather? As a seasoned journalist who spent four decades covering global stories for The Associated Press and editing the International Herald Tribune, Mort Rosenblum has spent much of his time in France, the place he calls home. Recently, he’s been temporarily exiled by the “Trump virus,” as he calls it, in Tucson where he grew up.
It’s a weird day in the neighborhood.
The air finally has been cool for a blast-oven Tucson summer, with even the faint promise of rain that always is almost certain to be broken. The blue skies have been hazy with smoke drifting east from California. My computer, finally abandoned on my desk back inside, is brimful of tweets.
Mort Rosenblum in Arizona.
But outside, the birds are silent. No big plumed quail. No hyper hummingbirds that shift position faster than Trump can tell a lie. No roadrunners flashing past, going “Beep, beep,” to leave a pursuing coyote hungry. Come to think of it, thanks to this turn in the weather, we missed the predawn a-cappella chorus of the coyote pack down in the wash that always brings Streak the Cat to the window, making noises that likely translate from feline to “Hold me back!” Something is strange.
Perhaps the all-knowing desert sensed doom as an orange-tinted Darth Vader prepared his swoop on the Empire at his convention’s final night. But I doubt it. I’m sensing that enough of my countrymen adhere to the Bible that he only uses as a prop. In its latest ad, the blessed Lincoln Project uses the Bible more genuinely, citing Matthew: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.”
Regardless of what so many Republicans claim, this is not specifically a Christian nation. Those pilgrims came here precisely because they’d had enough of some tyrant telling them what to believe and how to live their lives. Our “Under God” reflects something more basic— Do unto others— shared by people who follow Christ, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, a bunch of deities all at once or nothing in particular.
Besides, there was a sign before we started out that day on our morning hike. Some intruder had penetrated our little property, coming up the drive in the dead of night with no Bonehead and Clod on patrol to wave guns. She (I suspect, from the circumstances) bypassed our unlocked jeep and deposited a small painted rock by the door. It read, “Love + Light.”
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