Happy Spring, Worrisome Though It Be

Happy Spring is the way I feel when it starts getting warmer and the daffodils bloom. If only there weren’t so much to be concerned about: Can the West supply enough aid to Ukraine so they can keep holding the Russians off? How did this disastrous leak of intelligence about Russia and Ukraine happen? China is practicing invading Taiwan. I don’t like ideology-driven judges and legislators curbing women’s basic rights: five years in jail for helping a pregnant Idaho teenager travel to a state where she can get an abortion? Barbaric. The nasty-minded Trumpian-type Republicans controlling the House of Representatives aren’t going to suddenly become honest, decent, and sane. Will they cause a monumental debt crisis in a couple of months? Fighting climate change is looking increasingly like a hopeless situation. How can inflation be brought down without causing a bad recession?What about this A. I. business and the emotional psychic damage done by social media? Enough of this, I’m thinking, but then I realize that I’m anxious about what I’ve left off this list. Oh yes. Guns. It’s sickening the way gun enthusiasts and manufacturers and dark money donors and feckless legislators perpetuate our slaughter-prone condition. And banning books! Distorted-mind types like Florida governor DeSantis are ruling too many roosts. The English have an expression they use — “muddle through.” I hope we can muddle through.It’s probably the best we can do.