I love British TV. I just finished watching — for the umpteenth time — an episode of “Midsomer Murders” wherein “Seth,” a rather downtrodden resident of one of the many quirky Midsomer villages, tries to scam the locals into believing the mythical “Beast of Midsomer” has returned, as he attempts to explain a series of grisly murders. His intent is to capitalize on people’s gullibility and their willingness to believe in legends such as the Loch Ness Monster.

So he spreads the word that, according to something he calls the “Midsomer Chronicles” from the 17th Century (which, of course, are also fictitious):

“When badness come, so will The Beast.”

Well, of course, “Midsomer Murders” is fiction, so eventually the real killer is caught, and poor Seth — who is not the perpetrator as you might have expected — suffers a bit of embarrassment.

But think about what he said:

“When badness come, so will The Beast.”

If you read the daily news, you can’t possibly miss all the “badness” that has come — for some years now, surely, but at a terrifying rate in the past month alone. Because that’s when “The Beast” . . . in this case, a two-headed demon . . . arrived to take over — not only a country that has been the bulwark of democracy and freedom for nearly 250 years — but the whole damned world to boot.

And we are damned . . . because we are doing nothing about it. And if we don’t do something to stop it, we are all — the whole world — doomed.

*. *. *

When Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas penned the immortal lines:

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light . . .”

. . . he was thinking of his aging father and dreading the idea that the older man might soon die.

But the same advice — not to give in, but to fight for every minute of life — can easily be applied to the “dying of the light” that is facing our world today. Are we meant to simply give in to the mad ambitions of a handful of sociopaths, and thereby be thrust into a repeat of the Dark Ages?

Or are we meant to unite, and to find the legal, non-violent means to save ourselves?

It all comes down to us . . . “We, the People” . . . to keep the light alive. But is even our Constitution safe in the hands of the person who just fired the director of the National Archives — where this treasured document is preserved — not for cause, but out of revenge for a past dispute?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/17/25