A strange urge came over me on Friday. I think it had something to do with testosterone. And gravy.
I’ll get to gravy in a minute. For the other thing, you may have heard that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced this past week that servicemembers over 30 will be tested for “Low T.” Those with low levels will be offered testosterone-enhancing meds.
Taking them will be “voluntary.” Uh—huh.
The idea sure fits his agenda. Higher testosterone is associated with more aggression, which is associated with more violence, which he says will jack up what he calls “lethality,” the sanitized term for military killing with elan. Yes, he’s on a mission to put the ecstasy back into extermination. And, he assures the ranks, it’s all for God’s glory: massacres for the Most High.
As he said in book The War on Warriors: “that’s my jam.”
But no news there. And no gravy.
Yet maybe Hegseth is catching on to something else. The stuttering, sputtering Iran War, which should be one of his top operational priorities, has been showing signs of strategic flaccidity and projectile dysfunction. It could definitely use a boost.
Actually, the problems with the war (aside from the U. S. being the clear loser), come less from across the Strait of Hormuz, than from above: not The Lord, but up the ladder, from His Chosen One, 47.
The Boss clearly seems bored with or totally over the war. He gave it only a ghosting 20-second mention in his drowsy July 17 national address, merely declaring victory for the umpteenth time.
Clearly The Boss’s attention is wandering, from rehashing 2020, to subverting the midterms, hunting the terrorist gang that he swears carved up and algaenated his new-painted reflecting pool, to building a White House helipad, and back to 2020.
By now Hegseth should recognize the pattern: when 47’s projects go awry, he magnifies the lies, changes the subject, shifts the blame, and — this is the kicker — identifies a fall guy to blame and fire.
And that’s what came over me yesterday: a sense that Hegseth may be feeling his name coming into focus on the “Next-Under The Bus” candidate list.
After all, he promised The Boss regime change in Teheran on a platter, but has only delivered a world economic crisis, destruction of much of Lebanon, pariah/laughingstock status for 47 at all meetings of world leaders, and — maybe worst of all— crashing poll numbers.
So maybe the big man is now wondering if he’ll have to settle for regime change at . . . the Pentagon.
This is not a prediction. But as a suspicion, yesterday it became strong enough that it drove me to a corner of my kitchen cupboard to review some special objects.
There were three:
A box of gluten free biscuit mix;
A packet of GF country gravy mix; and
A pound of frozen ground pork sausage.
In shelf and freezer, these three have been serenely awaiting their moment.
I assembled them in the heady days of Kamala’s rise: once she unseated the tyrant, I decided, they would become my celebration feast: a damn-the-arterial-torpedoes, orgy of biscuits and sausage gravy (BSG). But GF.
After the election dream collapsed, and the barbarians were back inside the gates, I might have just tossed these tokens.
But something stayed my hand: among the crowd of catastrophic cabinet picks, Hegseth stood out for me: which would last longer? The constitution, or his tenure as the Anointed of God’s Anointed?
The jury’s still out on that one — either that, or they’ve been snatched by ICE. But amid all the subsequent bleakness and horror, I have nursed a hope that hope was still alive, or at least as sentient as some say Claude and Chatty GPT are.
After all, the bell has tolled for Bondi, Noem, Tulsi and even Chavez DeReimer. Maybe Pete’s not sharing their common failing (being female) is like wearing a kevlar vest?
Perhaps. But then, high-T didn’t save ICE’s Greg Bovino, did it?
Of course, I wasn’t about to make the concoction yesterday; but was just reminding myself. . . .
For several years as I was assimilating to life in north Carolina, BSGs were a part of my new jam. I sought them out in every greasy spoon or higher class eatery I could manage.
There were so many. With nuance. Soon I was having thoughts of a book: An Ex-Yankee’s Guide to the 100 best BSGs in the South and Elsewhere.
Maybe not a sure best-seller. But the research, friends, the research!
Dreams die hard.
Arteries do too. It was Thanksgiving Day weekend 2011:
Occupy Wall Street was having its moment, when I wound up on the gurney, flat on my back. Half-stoned, I got to watch onscreen as a doc pushed a tiny camera on a wire up my veins from leg to chest, and then deposit a tiny stent in a clogged artery next to my heart.
The “procedure” didn’t last very long, or hurt much. The incision was about half an inch, on my thigh; a bandaid covered it. I had good insurance, and was back to work quick.
But tragically, no more BSGs for me. And not long after, my gut started lobbying to skip gluten.
(Sigh) First World problems. To which was then added #45, and now #47.
Then a couple years ago I spotted on one supermarket aisle the GF country gravy packets, and on another a box of GF biscuit mix. (And BTW, pork sausage is generally GF too.)
And as I pondered them during the post-2024 election funk, a way of consolation opened. Yes: the day would come when Hegseth was out.
When or how? TBD.
One day at a time.(And every day it gets closer.)
And when the day arrives, I’ll be ready: me, the BSGs, lots of hot sauce, the stents (yes, that first one now has company) . . . and probably much of the rest of conscious humanity.
Meantime there might be a bit of diversion to be found watching Hegseth struggle to figure out how to give a T-booster shot to a drone.