Monday Macchiato: Mexico; Medal Fetishes; And Bendy MacGuffins

Starting a new week with some experimental home-brew coffee frothing and a little Amy Winehouse and trying to find our rhythm.

The Buck Sergeant in our lives always stressed the importance of the Joint Planning Process prior to Deployment and we’re applying that thinking to our local news gathering efforts while actual generals and admirals move cutout aircraft carriers and fighter jets into position on maps half a world away.

Whether or not smart bombs or even dumb ones actually start to drop remains to be seen, of course, but we’ve learned that military people don’t maneuver carrier groups and F-35 squadrons into position for kicks. And, well, it’s not as if this administration hasn’t taken the covers off its guns in recent weeks. We shall see. In the past, members of the Joint Chiefs argued against U.S. military intervention in Iran but we can’t help but notice that those generals have all been replaced with puppets, whoops – people, more in line with the administration’s thinking. Lindsey Graham has reportedly volunteered to lead a Delta Force detachment into Pahlavi Park.

While many appear to be pumping themselves up for some type of military action (Sarge would have been embarrassed to see his old regiment used as a prop by the SecDefense recently) others seem content to drape themselves in the medals others have earned and, well, you just can’t get any more feckless and phony than that.

Things people appear to be worrying about locally include burning cars abandoned on active railway tracks, a tough business climate, smoke plumes rising around vacation homes in Mexico after a cartel head who trained in San Francisco was topped down there, and the loss of nine avid backcountry skiers taken by the deadliest avalanche in California history.

That last one hit home as we glanced at an old memento of our time in Jackson Hole – the ventilated casing from an M40 recoilless rifle the Ski Patrol used to trigger impending avalanches – remembering the power of those billowy white tsunamis as they raced down the mountain.

We’re thinking the unusual quiet lingering in the air as a parade of bombshell stories parade before us, each clamoring for attention few seem willing to give, is actually a form of Information Overload – people struck dumb by circumstances beyond their control or ability to process. We’re constantly trying to gauge public sentiment and, at the moment, it appears to be: Waiting Expectantly.

Whatever the size of the next dropping shoe it’s clear we’re living in dynamic times with a hundred different story arcs in play and “The Writers’ Room” – the ones setting all this calamity in motion – dropping in the occasional MacGuffin, a writer’s device used to keep the plot in motion, having their way with us.

Part Kurt Vonnegut, part Tom Clancy with some major All The President’s Men plot lines, the end result so far has been a story that remains unfinished, but which appears to include some major cliff-hangers guaranteed to make for theatrical viewing when someone gets around to making a movie about all this.

As for us, we’re knocking down copious amounts of coffee and cranking up “Back To Black.” We’ve learned to take comfort where we can find it.