Every silver lining has a black cloud

To The Eagle:

At last I've been outed! And by my down-the-road neighbor, too (J.B.Bouchard in last week's Eagle). I truly thought my dark and twisted logic was known only to my wife, and maybe a couple of my senior wolfhounds (the new puppy has no clue). One minor caveat: I'm not exactly a Trump supporter, having warned in these pages that he was executing a hostile takeover of the Republican party. But when we got to the finish line, he got my vote by default. T'was de fault of Hilary, who, as the only other real choice, had a long track record as a compulsive liar, a betrayal at Benghazi, and the equivalent of posting national security secrets on Facebook.

Post election I became, like Bouchard and Dennis Gordon, an observer, not supporter, but unlike them was immediately pleasantly surprised first by some outstanding appointments (Gorsuch, McMaster, Sessions) and mending our badly bruised relationship with Israel. But how about those pesky cathedrals? As Mr. Bouchard astutely implies, the liberals have made a religion out of ecology and global warming which does admittedly cause cognitive dissonance in us simple rustics, since despite the fact that science indicates said warming (6000 years of it) has more to do with solar activity than carbon dioxide, and CO2 is more beneficial than not, the nouveau religion requires controlling climate change with massive taxation, ritual firing of coal miners, and summary execution of oil executives. So, populist political poetry: Paycheck in bank/Petroleum in tank/Trump we thank.

And I, like J.B., think nuclear winter will trump global warming (pun intended), but envision a different type of nuclear winter. The prez has made noises about restraining the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and revitalizing our nuclear industry which could make nuclear power our prime source of electricity which would cut petroleum back to powering our transportation and let the coal industry die a natural death while exporting our last coal to China, reducing the trade deficit that is causing much of our unemployment. Yup, that's pretty twisty logic. I love it.

In the war department: Trump inherits war-ravaged Syria, nuclear saber-rattling (and crazy) North Korea, aggressive and arms-building China and Russia, and a revitalized and active Al Qaeda with our military at its lowest ebb in both equipment and personnel since WWII. Trump has adopted Reagan's "peace through strength" and Teddy R's "speak softly and carry a big stick" (although he has kinda botched the "speak softly" part) which seems eminently preferable to Obama's waffling, capitulating, and leading from behind.

This writing project was started attempting to dispel a bit of the wailing and gnashing following the Donald's ascent to the helm, but I can see it ain't workin' so I'll leave you with philosophy from my sainted father-in-law, who always reassured us, "every silver lining has a big ugly black cloud around it."

Howard Brawn Puget Island