A new category for Mr. Ripley

Ripley's Believe It or Not.

“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”—Georges Clemenceau

One of the two-edged swords of old age is having lived long enough to reflect upon the good old days, with a degenerating memory that brings those good-days into question. Mark Twain said it better than me: “When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”

Thus the question of the day is this: Were those bygone days as good as old folks remember, or were such days a fantasy older people choose to fabricate? Being of the senior class, I prefer to remember a better day, regardless of accuracy. Choice is something greatly cherished in our culture but more times than not the deck from which we get to choose turns out to have shrunk without our noticing, and thus I suspect there is truth to Clemenceau’s observation: Our nation has slipped into ever-increasing moral degeneration, and the demons are flying as bats out of Hell.

As reported almost everywhere at the moment, the days of reckoning for Jeffrey Epstein, due to his surely certain sexual exploitation of teenaged girls, are now upon him. The wheels of justice grind slowly, if at all, particularly for those who enjoy the better aspect of that double-standard. While significant, the backdrop to his escapades is a culture that, in far too many cases, rewards the misdeeds of the rich and famous, as our now President has reminded us time after time. The elite pontificators and prognosticators said his election could not happen, nor could it stay the day. But it did happen and it continues to perpetuate regardless of standards that have faded into the smoke of yesteryear.

Say what you will about our current leader but recognize that he has a talent for finding a parade and leading from the rear. Walking in front would surely reveal that hidden bone spur. Sadly, he didn’t create the parade. He found it, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, remember the one above. Ripley would need to come up with a new category to fit this one into. Believe it or not, as our morals head south, the approval ratings of our President are rising.