I wish I weren't such an anxious person. In exchange for being calm I'd gladly take on the extra 25 pounds I'd probably be carrying around if not for all the fidgeting, flailing, pacing, sweating, emoting, and physical and mental bouncing off the walls that are a by-product of my anxiety stylings.
And yet these days even the most cool, calm and collected among us should be an anxiety case.
Anyone who's not an anxiety case right now is either not readying the news, doesn't believe the news, doesn't care about the news, or isn't taking the news seriously.
I met up with some not-serious-taking Ohioans back in the good old days before the 2016 elections while I was canvassing for Hillary. When one old-timer asked me why I thought he should vote for Hilary I replied that if Donald Trump won he'd get us into a nuclear World War Three with North Korea.
"Maybe World War Three is what we need," the old guy chuckled, "blow everything up and start over from scratch!"
"We should be building up our nuclear stockpile," quipped another Trump supporter whose door I inadvertently knocked on and who was not throwing away his shot at shocking an old liberal lady, "everybody's doing it!"
However the problem today is not so much that everybody's doing it as that North Korea's doing it and Donald Trump's main response so far has been to casually toss out that the United State could "end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea."
Kim Jong Un's come back was to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile last week that with a bit of tweaking could theoretically hit Alaska, not to mention take out South Korea or Japan.
"I guess (the Americans) are not to happy with the gift package we sent them for the occasion of their Independence Day," snickered Kim Jong Un after watching his missile launch.
Donald Trump got back at Kim by sending two fighter jets to buzz the Korean Peninsula and bomb the waters off its cost, adding that he was considering some more "very severe things" in response to North Korea's missile test.
Kim Jong Un shot back yesterday that Donald Trump is pushing North Korea and the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war. "Don't play with fire on a powder keg," warned the North Korean newspaper that is Kim Jong Un's mouthpiece.
Meanwhile Donald Trump has been popping off alternately critical, fawning, and whining texts in an effort to get China to toughen up against North Korea. But, while China is not crazy about living next door to a nuclear North Korea, China and North Korea are - if only out of necessity - allies and trading partners and China has no burning desire to see Kim Jong Un toppled. Or to have Crazy Kim's missiles pointed in his direction.
"You and Kim work it out between yourselves," says Chinese President Xi Jinping to Donald Trump, "talk, negotiate. And try backing off North Korea a little. No more bombs in the water."
In the meantime China has begun paling around with the European Union, grabbing the opening left since Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord, alienated our Western allies who in turn froze him out last week at the G20 summit, and turned over the position of world leadership from the President of the United States to Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany.
And yet these days even the most cool, calm and collected among us should be an anxiety case.
Anyone who's not an anxiety case right now is either not readying the news, doesn't believe the news, doesn't care about the news, or isn't taking the news seriously.
I met up with some not-serious-taking Ohioans back in the good old days before the 2016 elections while I was canvassing for Hillary. When one old-timer asked me why I thought he should vote for Hilary I replied that if Donald Trump won he'd get us into a nuclear World War Three with North Korea.
"Maybe World War Three is what we need," the old guy chuckled, "blow everything up and start over from scratch!"
"We should be building up our nuclear stockpile," quipped another Trump supporter whose door I inadvertently knocked on and who was not throwing away his shot at shocking an old liberal lady, "everybody's doing it!"
However the problem today is not so much that everybody's doing it as that North Korea's doing it and Donald Trump's main response so far has been to casually toss out that the United State could "end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea."
Kim Jong Un's come back was to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile last week that with a bit of tweaking could theoretically hit Alaska, not to mention take out South Korea or Japan.
"I guess (the Americans) are not to happy with the gift package we sent them for the occasion of their Independence Day," snickered Kim Jong Un after watching his missile launch.
Donald Trump got back at Kim by sending two fighter jets to buzz the Korean Peninsula and bomb the waters off its cost, adding that he was considering some more "very severe things" in response to North Korea's missile test.
Kim Jong Un shot back yesterday that Donald Trump is pushing North Korea and the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war. "Don't play with fire on a powder keg," warned the North Korean newspaper that is Kim Jong Un's mouthpiece.
Meanwhile Donald Trump has been popping off alternately critical, fawning, and whining texts in an effort to get China to toughen up against North Korea. But, while China is not crazy about living next door to a nuclear North Korea, China and North Korea are - if only out of necessity - allies and trading partners and China has no burning desire to see Kim Jong Un toppled. Or to have Crazy Kim's missiles pointed in his direction.
"You and Kim work it out between yourselves," says Chinese President Xi Jinping to Donald Trump, "talk, negotiate. And try backing off North Korea a little. No more bombs in the water."
In the meantime China has begun paling around with the European Union, grabbing the opening left since Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord, alienated our Western allies who in turn froze him out last week at the G20 summit, and turned over the position of world leadership from the President of the United States to Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany.
 | Angela Merkel with Xi Jinping, who recently donated two pandas to the Berlin Zoo. |
And so Donald Trump has brought us to this point where the United States is left without a single real ally -
| ...Vladimir Putin doesn't count, he's playing Trump like a chess pawn - |  |
...to go it alone against North Korea in a war of threats, missile tests, and bombs in the water.
So far.
So far.
 | This is making America great again? |
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/world/asia/trump-north-korea-kim-jong-un.html?mcubz=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test-icbm.html?mcubz=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/europe/xi-merkel-trump-china-germany.html?mcubz=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/asia/north-korea-south-us-nuclear-war.html?mcubz=0
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/06/us-could-use-military-force-against-north-korea-says-nikki-haley
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4678998/Kim-Jong-threatens-Donald-Trump.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/world/asia/trump-north-korea-kim-jong-un.html?mcubz=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test-icbm.html?mcubz=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/europe/xi-merkel-trump-china-germany.html?mcubz=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/asia/north-korea-south-us-nuclear-war.html?mcubz=0
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/06/us-could-use-military-force-against-north-korea-says-nikki-haley
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4678998/Kim-Jong-threatens-Donald-Trump.html
 |  | "Equal And Opposite Reactions" by Patti Liszkay is available at http://www.blackrosewriting.com/romance/equalandoppositereactions, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, Kindle Edition, and Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio |
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