TUCSON — Winnie-the-Pooh, a whimsical little storybook bear, once made sense: “If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”

But when concrete blocks too many ears, it’s time to heed Chicken Little. That old tale taught kids not to fret over small stuff, like the hen bonked on the head by an acorn who yelled “The sky is falling!” Look around today. The sky is falling.

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TUCSON — In an old Buddhist parable, blind men describe an elephant. Whatever one touches — tusk, trunk, leathery hide — defines it. That is no challenge with the Trump-corrupted Republican Party version. Just lift up the tail.

Britons learned the hard way with Brexit the costs of a hasty decision by ill-informed voters. Great Britain is now simply a Britain fraught with troubles, and there is no going back. Imagine the incalculable impact of an Amerexit.

If November elections go badly, the United States will likely be an ex-democracy mired in pachyderm plop, too self-absorbed and mean-spirited to help turn down the heat in an increasingly bellicose and autocratic world.

In a book titled “The Bill of Obligations,” seasoned statesman Richard Haass lists 10 requisites for citizens in a free society. The first says it all: “Be Informed.” That is no easy task in a nation befuddled by lies and lunacy that spread at the speed of light.

This is a hard look at what is going on beyond the oceans that insulate America from a reporter who has watched the world fall on its axis since the 1960s.

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LUKEVILLE, Arizona — Nothing reveals the fear and loathing that is poisoning America like the Mexican border I’ve crisscrossed since I was a kid. Republicans exploit blatant fallacies as a path to power. Their cruelty shames America while choking off skills and labor it badly needs.

An ex-president found liable for rape, who wants to come back with the right to execute citizens at whim, calls refugees fleeing for their lives “rapists and murderers,” vermin who poison the nation’s blood. He says only a fortress barrier can stop them. It can’t.

Here at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, his “big, beautiful wall” destroys natural splendor, sacred Indian sites, wildlife habitats and watercourses. But more, it causes needless death and misery, showing a scornful world that the Statue of Liberty is a cynical sham.

In places, steel uprights at their base appear to mimic metal Picasso sculptures. Cartels cut holes in minutes at night with generator-powered saws. Welders patch in cross pieces, but they’re soon open again for crossers who trek miles to declare themselves to the Border Patrol.

Solutions would be deceptively simple. But self-focused legislators want to keep out conflict and climate victims. Their isolationism creates yet more refugees. Border talks tied to military aid weaken Ukraine as Russians advance. War widens beyond Israel and Palestine.

If voters don’t grasp reality by November, a misconstrued “border crisis” could turn that hallowed American dream into a nightmare.

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TUCSON — Our new year’s resolutions are already half-forgotten. Same-old, same-old on TV. Santa forgot my forklift to bring the daily fluff-bloated New York Times in from the driveway. And the world is nearing – with all things considered — the most crucial showdown in human history.

That epic film, “Lawrence of Arabia,” loops in my head. A thirsty Lawrence berates a petty sheikh who refuses water from his desert oasis: “So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel as you are.”

You see where I’m going here. A deranged human hairball intends to choke off democracy in America. Yet voters might bring him back to power, rejecting a president who has restored prosperity while working effectively to thwart climate collapse and contain two widening wars.

A re-United States needs a New Year’s Revolution.

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TUCSON — I was doing fine on holiday cheer until I saw a CNBC website report on the stock market’s “Santa Clause rally.” No play on words, just a dumb misspelling that merits a minor chuckle until you step back to consider what lies behind it.

Words used carefully have never mattered more. Jews and Arabs, for instance. Nothing makes the point like Hamas’s monstrous Oct. 7 onslaught and the relentless riposte by hardline Israeli politicians who shame Judaism.

There is no “both sides.” Yet hotheads across a tinderbox world target all “Jews.” Others who don’t know a kibbutz from a kibitz blindly defend “Israel,” laying all blame on “Arabs” and “Muslims.”

Many now assume a reporter is biased simply from a name. Since the 1960s, I’ve sent dispatches from land held holy by three brand-name religions under a Rosenblum byline. These days, I need a pseudonym. Maybe Omar Moshe O’Toole.

In holiday mode, we can skip over the first 5,000 years of background. Today, inflammatory reactions risk wider war. And the American ex-president who dumped nitroglycerin on simmering embers may be back to replace the incumbent trying hard to douse the flames.

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