Sunday Morning Post (V.1, #29) - Tragic Examples of Irony

I’m in a self-induced haze today.  I took two strong PM type tablets last night to alleviate the hip arthritis which has been aching all weekend.   Fortunately, I have my follow up appointment with an orthopedic surgeon tomorrow.  I hope we can start my next medical adventure tomorrow, which will include physical therapy for a month, followed shortly thereafter by my actual surgery and recovery. 

The therapy will be insisted upon by that great arbiter of the American health industry: the American health insurance industry.

Still my pain is relative to the suffering being endured by the survivors of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton (not Toledo, Mr. President) last weekend.  My pain is not in any way comparable to those mourning, grieving and trying to heal from the double tragedies.

One of the more heart-wrenching stories was that of a young couple shopping for supplies for their six-year-old daughter’s birthday planned for later that day.  They were gunned down and fell on top of their baby being held in his mother’s arms.   The parents have been hailed as heroes since their action shielded the child from the shooter’s bullets.   The child suffered broken fingers, but he will recover from those wounds.  The longer healing process will be growing up with very little memory of his biological parents.

Such is the consequence of a leader who foments the shooter’s rage and does little beyond reciting words from a teleprompter.  As is tradition, our current President sought to reassure the nation with a well-meaning, but ultimately insincere, televised address to the nation.  The President then traveled to the sites of the tragedies – again tradition from past leaders visiting sites of natural and man-made disasters.

In El Paso, the President was greeted by first responders, but most of the survivors did not want anything to do with him or any other visitors.   The baby was brought back to the hospital after being released to his father’s brother.  The result was a tasteless photo op featuring the leader whose rhetoric towards immigrants had much in common with the shooter’s rhetoric and one of the shooter’s tiniest victims.  Thus, one part of the ironic part of the tragedy was completed.

The brother, who presumably will end up raising his orphaned nephew, was asked why he brought the child to the hospital.   The uncle explained that he is a fan of the President and wanted to meet him.  He also revealed that the baby’s father — who had turned his life around in the last few years and presumably was living a happily-ever-after existence — was also a fan of the President.

And with that, the other shoe of irony fell from this tragedy.

Many critics of the President will point to this and exclaim, “A-ha!  Serves him right!”  Such is the mean-spirited tenor of our times.  Others will shake their heads solemnly with the age-old admonishment that “the chickens have come home to roost.”  I myself can only shrug with another age-old admonishment: “What goes around, comes around!”

I just wish this hatred would stop coming around, but that does not appear likely as long as we have a narcissistic leader who doesn’t understand that he is part of the problem and has no concept of empathy.

(Thank you for reading.  On second thought, living in a haze might help me cope with this national nightmare.)