All week I have been walking around muttering to myself, “The assholes usually win.” There are personal reasons for this rumination (you know who you are) but all it takes is a clear-eyed looked at the world to see that it is true. I mean: Dick Cheney? Vladimir Putin? Kanye West? The logical corollary to “Nice guys finish last” is that assholes finish first, and all the magical thinking and candy platitudes in the world will not alter that fact. The innocent suffer and the wicked prosper and how one deals with this reality shapes one’s life but to pretend it is not true is simply beyond my abilities. Uncle Jimmy said, “One can be—indeed, one must strive to become—tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of war; remember, I said most of mankind…”

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