The Sun Came Up, And Here We Are: A Few Reasons To Keep Going

In Space, No One Can Hear Trump Talk

It has been an intensely rotten day, kids. When we got up this morning, we were too sick from the election results to bother noticing our hangover. We're looking at four years or more (unless he manages to get impeached) of a know-nothing creep in power, and worse, all the vultures he's going to invite to share a great big feast on the bloated corpse of the national legacy. But as President Obama -- who we still have in the White House for 73 final days of dignity and decency before the circus moves in -- said today, the sun came up this morning regardless of who won or lost. And it will tomorrow. So let's get some perspective and remember why we're going to keep going, no matter how much we hurt right now.

For starters, there's the REALLY big perspective, as summed up in Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot," which reminds us that we're all in this together, and it's up to us to save ourselves, since nobody's coming to do it for us. There are a lot ofvideo versions, including this fine one made by Neil deGrasse Tyson for his Cosmos reboot:

The sun comes up. We go on, because not going on would be far worse. (Just don't claim Winston Churchill said, "When you're going through Hell -- keep going, " because while it's a fine line, he didn't say it )

There's also Uncle Kurt Vonnegut, whose birthday we will celebrate again in just two days:

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

 
 62 years of raising hell

There's Saint Molly Ivins, whose spirit we're going to need more than ever in the months and, Jesus, years ahead:

So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.

There's babies.

And of course all the kittens and puppies you guys want to post.

There's us. And we have, cliches be damned, each other.

The point is, those things aren't going away. And by god, this strange little mommyblogging community certainly isn't going away either. We've got work to do. As our best fictional president used to say, what's next?

[Image by NASA/Arizona State University ]