An on and off again best friend from Junior High School. Was always a bit off, but fun. Military school, way too much acid, conspiracy theories, and homelessness finally killed him two years ago. Had to cut him off back in the early '90's after I fully grokked the depth of his sociapathy, once it turned on me. And he thought the TV was watching him, in 1990. Could write a book about that arc. When you talk about your friend Carol and how you haven't fully recovered, I know what you mean. I get the feeling there's a novel length story there too.

My father-in-law. Wonderful, smart, generous southern gentleman. Even though I was a long-haired hippy, he accepted me into the family when I asked him for his daughter's hand. His decline into dementia was slow at first, then rapid, like a decaying orbit and burning up in the atmosphere. Miss him a lot.

What's happening to the GOP is somehow a mixture of both. There has always been the conspiracy minded, racist, sociopathic element. Ideas born with the John Burch Society still percolate up and people now don't even know their origins. Other ancient hatreds have roots difficult to pull out. But these were always kept in some sort of check, there are many conservative politicians and theorists that I admire, even if I didn't always agree with them.

But now the atmosphere is dragging down their orbit. The GOP is reflecting their party's leader's cognitive decline.