I’ve had a couple of folks mention that they hadn’t seen anything from me on this page for some time. It is unclear whether they were disappointed about a lack of new commentary or were disappointed to find me still in the land of the living.

I prefer to believe the former, but in all honesty, I can’t dismiss the latter either.

I have had my reasons.

In the three weeks leading up to the mid-terms, when you would expect me to be in my most extreme fair-and-unbiased-yet-hair-on-fire mode, I must admit to being AWOL, as in “out of the country.”

Although it meant missing three weeks of negative advertisements full of lies, white lies and damn lies, the missus and I were in Scotland reconnecting with my extended family.

The cousins take a lively interest in the goings on in the former colonies. What were the take-aways? They are absolutely baffled by a gun culture that sees more guns in circulation than there are people to own them. When you begin to explain the patchwork nature of our health care system, their shock and disbelief is palpable.

And what about our president?

They are very polite. After all, in his declining years, King George III (of “Hamilton” fame) spoke earnestly to trees, so they don’t feel they are in any position to be trashing the eccentricities of our current leader. They do indicate, however, that talking to trees was less dangerous to western civilization in its day than, say, courting Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un is today.

Which is not to say our president doesn’t have his supporters. On Islay (Eye-la) our taxi driver commented favorably that President Trump does what he says he is going to do. Islay is one of those islands surrounded by water that the president occasionally references—but this island has eight active single malt whisky (that is the correct spelling) distilleries scattered about. Yippee!! And thanks be to the taxi driver who delivered me to nearly all of them. At the end of the day, as near as I can remember, who cared about his politics?

Bottom line, a great trip, and I didn’t miss those negative ads at all.

I have also been processing the results of the election.

I continue to be amazed by how steadfastly red this county and state continue to be. If my Republican friends and neighbors nominated a turkey to run for office, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the turkey being elected in the fall.

Come to think of it, this is not a hypothetical. It has already happened on more than one occasion.

Nationally, I believe it is a healthy development that the House has flipped to Democrat. I believe in checks and balances. In its slavish subservience to the president, be it from fear of being “primaried” or outright political cowardness, the present House, which could have provided a counterpoint to the executive branch even with a Republican majority, failed in its constitutional duty. The Republican caucus deserved what it got.

Having said that, I am aware that Democrats are fully capable of screwing up a two-car parade.

There is a temptation to spend the next two years replicating the Republican penchant for unending exercises in politically motivated oversight hearings.

Certainly, there are matters that require scrutiny to see if legislation is required to prevent a repetition of political chicanery, or to protect our governmental and non-governmental institutions that have been under more or less constant attack since January 20, 2016.

Having said that, I don’t think Democrats seized a House majority merely to bedevil the president. They were elected because the public is fed up with a gridlocked do-nothing Congress.

Unless they wish their current ascendency to be of short duration, it is up to the new Democrat House to pursue the priorities supported by the public who elected them, items such as health care, infrastructure repair, immigration reform, prescription drug costs, gerrymandering, restoration of the Voting Rights Act, and reform of an electoral process awash in dark money.

We’ll see.

Finally, I note the passing of my friend George Hopkins. In politics, we rarely agreed, but the good judge was always a gentleman who was willing to discuss rationally and never resorted to a rant. I will miss him.