Your front-row seat to my nervous breakdown
At one point during his hour-long interview with David Letterman, Barack Obama offers some reasoned and detailed remarks about the global economy, at the conclusion of which Letterman responds by saying, “To hear you describe this in a way that I can understand just makes me so happy you’re still president.”
The most compelling stories often are those that feature a deeply unlikable villain against whom the forces of good must rally, and when the ink dries on this chapter in American history, the record will show that Donald Trump was that villain. His vulgarity knows no bounds, his incompetence and unfitness for the office he holds are unprecedented, and his utter lack of anything even vaguely resembling the empathy, gravitas, dignity or humility a man in his position should possess makes him an easy and highly deserving target of our collective rage and resistance. As awful as he is, however, Donald Trump is not the sum total of that against which we now must fight; he is merely the most glaring symptom of a larger malignancy. To wit:
After spending the day in and around many of Washington, D.C.’s most historic buildings and seeing in action some of the Senators I most admire, I felt compelled to visit the National Mall—the Lincoln Memorial, in particular. I don’t know why; I just knew I needed to see it.
Last Thursday, I spent the day in Washington, D.C., shadowing a colleague (a.k.a. my sister) on the Hill while she met with aides at the offices of several Democratic and Republican Senators. It was my second-ever trip to our nation’s capital, and my first since becoming an overly obsessed political junkie … so, naturally, I was a bit awed by my surroundings.
NOTE: The post below is the last one I published at my old blog, much of the content from which I’ve since republished here at JonZal.com.
I launched this blog almost 12 years ago. The writing I’ve done here, and the feedback I’ve gotten from many of you, has made this the most fulfilling creative endeavor of my life thus far.
Last week, in the immediate aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in modern history, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) went on television and defended civilian ownership of the AR-15, a military-style assault rifle that the Las Vegas shooter used to kill 59 people and injure more than 500. Cole — one of many Republican Congressmen who, not coincidentally, has received thousands of dollars from the National Rifle Association — argued that the weapon is not dangerous “when used appropriately.”
During U.S. Army basic training, I was taught the appropriate use of the M-16, the military’s fully automatic version of the semi-automatic AR-15. I distinctly recall the description that the other trainees and I received of what the bullets our weapons fired were capable of doing to the human body.
Recently, I tweeted this:
I was a Military Police K-9 handler. I reject police brutality & support peaceful protest.#TakeTheKnee #VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/ILB3YRkGi0
— Jon Zal (@OfficialJonZal) September 25, 2017
I have more to say about it than a tweet will allow. Here goes.
I took that photo back in August of 1995 from the bow of the Staten Island Ferry during my first-ever visit to Manhattan. Despite having grown up just a couple hundred miles away, I somehow managed to not go there until I was 25. I guess I just assumed that it couldn’t be much different than Boston, so why bother?