2015-03-01 – Now that the worst fourth week of February in history is over, the truth can be told: it wasn’t that bad. (I’m not speaking for other parts of the country, but we’ve been hearing the worst-ever story here in Chicago for some time. It wasn’t. And if it was, on some technical grounds, the worst, then the worst ain’t so bad.)

This morning, which is the first day of the worst March ever, I saw a post on Facebook urging Congress to shut down the government until Obama resigns. Obama must be the worst President ever. I just spilled my latte and I never spilled my latte when George Bush was President. And Ted Cruz is promising that my lattes will never spill if he is elected President. I hate spilled lattes. Where is the War Crimes Tribunal when you need it?

On the other side of the aisle, folks are apoplectic about Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this week, which snubs the President. They say that relations between Israel and the United States are irreparably ruined. Kinda like our relations with German were irreparably ruined when George Bush rubbed Angela Merkel’s shoulders—or when the NSA spied on her.

Where did we get so friggin’ fragile? (Nice alliteration, don’t you think?) Couldn’t we have a little Net(anyahu) neutrality? By this time next week, the Netanyahu speech will be forgotten. We’ll be inundated with another “suspenseful” 11th hour government shutdown debate. And the weather will be recordbreaking warm or windy or unusually calm.

And an acorn will fall on Chicken Little’s head and he’ll think the sky is falling.

And you thought that Acorn was out of business!

* * *

I used to be excitable like this. Sorta. When Ronald Reagan was elected President, we joked about moving to Canada. When Lyndon Johnson and then Richard Nixon escalated the war in Vietnam, and we were draft-age young men with low numbers, we joked about moving to Canada. I suppose some of us did move to Canada. But I stayed and millions of others stayed. We went crazy when the 2001 election came down to some questionable ballots in Florida and the contest was decided by the Supreme Court. And George Bush became President—for eight long years.

But we survived. And by that point in my life, I knew I would survive.

And we will all survive, left and right, until we stop believing that we will. And maybe even then.

And then there was the dress. I saw white and gold. You saw black and blue. How could you be so stupid? . . .