As some readers may know, mariner is playing bachelor for a couple of weeks. The sudden absence of a life partner is surprisingly distracting for a few days. It took three days for mariner to set up routines, refocus thoughts and chores and establish a bit of energy about it all.

After a few days, desperation sets in with no one to interact with and a horrible, horrible void called television. Internet news was rehashing Covid yet again and provided little that was genuinely new.

Last evening, sitting silent in a silent living room and waiting for bedtime, mariner discovered a show on Smithsonian channel about six Obama speeches.

The atmosphere, the intelligence, the legitimacy of actions was so vividly different than it is today that it was akin to rapture. Not to give Obama what is not due but the reality of his Presidency, the reason, the humanness, the national unity was breathtaking. Mariner felt as if he had taken a soothing drug.

Check out the show: The Obama Years; the Power of words. It’s just like taking an aspirin for a headache or an antacid for the stomach. The rest of the evening was more pleasant – there is joy in the world, just not right now. But it did exist!

Drawn back to reality, these are dangerous times for democracy. Do not be slack in your support of democracy, you may lose it.

Ancient Mariner