Fiat Lux!

1. This Little Light of Mine 

This is the season of darkness; this is the season of light. On December 8, 2013, I wrote a little essay, "Have Yourself A Merry (Little!)Christmas," https://thomasdorsett.blogspot.com/2013/12/have-yourself-merry-little-chhristmas. "How to stay serene and happy, while those around you are caught up in Christmas rush?"  is the article's theme. It depicts a scene of madness. I was waiting with bags of groceries for Nirmala to pick me up in the car. Shoppers everywhere! There was no parking space; we had parked several blocks way. The parking lot, in which I was standing, was full; cars kept on circling, drivers were desperately seeking an opportunity to park and shop. Traffic around the parking area was reduced to a snail's pace. The din of cars honking was everywhere. The people who rushed by looked obsessed--and unhappy. I struck up a conversation with a woman waiting, like me, for someone to pick her up.

We had a memorable conversation. We decided that the way to enjoy the holidays, and life in general,  was to tone things down, be thankful for little things, to lower expectations, to live in the joy of the moment.

Those were the days! The parking lot is gone--condominiums have taken its place--and a virus has been sedulously picking up humans as if it was an evil, invisible kid picking up pieces of stolen candy.

Not only is the parking lot gone, but the adjacent mall (I imagine) is empty. This is going to be a very different Christmas. The pandemic has shattered plans of family get-togethers. Many people are without jobs. Empty stomachs; empty malls.

Why am I feeling guilty? Because I am feeling happy. Even serene. As a senior citizen who has several underlying conditions, I have remained at home, except for masked excursions for groceries. So far I have escaped the deadly virus, so far. But that's not the only reason why I feel happy.

I am one of the lucky ones. There is a lot of suffering going on, I know, and I hope the light at the end of the tunnel, the vaccine, will soon restore health and a sense of well-being. How can I, albeit sympathetic to the plight of others, still manage to feel good?

2. Let there Be Light

As I write this, we are only two days away from the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It is cold; it is gloomy. It is easy to feel cold and gloomy as well. What better way to counteract surrounding dark than to celebrate days of increasing light,  at the height of light's relative  lack, by bringing light into the house, by bringing light within?

I do what many people do--decorate and light a Christmas tree. It doesn't have to be a tree  in order to celebrate a festival of lights, however, a large, festive menorah would do as well. The important thing is an extra-abundance of photons.

I am spiritual--I perform Buddhist meditation twice daily--but not Christian. I used to worry that setting up a tree would be inconsistent with my identity, but I realize now that this was silly. Bringing a tree inside the home was, after all, a pagan custom adopted by Christians. The gospel of light belongs to all; it illuminates all creeds.

I think mostly everyone suffers from at least a mild form of SAD, seasonal affective disorder, sadness caused by reduced light in winter. For me, contemplating a lit tree in a dark room is a source of delight.

Light is said to increase serotonin, a hormone which lifts mood. It also gets me to thinking, that is, contemplating...

3.A Little Bit of Physics

A founding father of quantum mechanics, Niels Bohr, once stated that if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't. The most mysterious of all quantum particles is, I think, the photon, the source of light.

Everything we know can be classified as a thing. Books, boulders, stars--even in the strictest sense, persons. (Everything inside a human, brains included, is composed of elements found elsewhere in the environment as well). Even thoughts, chemicals
 stored in  neurons, are things. And all things have mass. Except the photon!

How can something, depending on observation, sometimes behave like matter, sometime like a wave of energy? This wavicle-oxymoron is an impossibility. Yet light has achieved it!

 

This electron microscope image illustrates the dual nature of light--its property of being both a wave  and a particle (an oxymoron)--This property, known since 1905, has never before witnessed in this way by human eyes. The wave element is evident at the top of the image.

An oxymoron is the photon, a massless thing. But here the oxymoron isn't used as a literary device, such as the oxymoron "bittersweet" denoting mixed emotions, such as "Parting is such sweet sorrow." As far as I know, the massless photon is the only example where an oxymoron has no emotional, that is, human connotation .

A thingless thing--how can we imagine something like the photon? We don't have to--they are all over the place, the very foundation of vision.

Light is even weirder. As Einstein's theory of relativity teaches, during acceleration time dilates and space shrinks. We cannot ever go faster than the speed of light, because as we approach 186,000 miles per second, the matter being accelerated approaches an infinite weight; it would take an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light. Impossible! Yet light has done just that! Another way of saying it is that as an object is accelerated, space is converted into time. At the speed of light, space has become nothing, zero, while time has stopped--And another way of saying time has stopped is saying that it has reached eternity, the state of infinite time-dilatation. 

Open your eyes--Eternity is always right in front of your nose!

4.  Photons and Symbolism

A line by the 17th century metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan has always impressed me: "I saw Eternity the other night." Now we know that this statement is literally true--provided he wrote it by candlelight!

In the West, light is very close to God, if not God. In Genesis, God gets the universe going by declaring "Fiat Lux," "Let there be Light." (In the East, enlightenment comes by meditating, closing the eyes and listening. In this tradition the drumbeat, the dhamuru, is the symbol of creation. --See my blog about Nataraja, The Cosmic Dance, https://thomasdorsett.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-cosmic-dance.html.)

Milton brilliantly described the connection between divinity and light in the following excerpt from Paradise Lost:

Hail, holy light, offspring of Heav'n first-born,

Or of the' Eternal Coeternal beam

May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,

And never but in unapproached light

dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

Beautiful words, signifying a beautiful and literal truth. There is also a problem here, of course. Theistic religions take the concept of God as a person literally. For me, it is  metaphor. Yes, God is light, but every photon is exactly alike. (As Jesus of Nazareth pointed out, light shines on both good and evil, making no distinction between them). Finding a personal God in light is a literal confusion, a true oxymoron.

Conclusion

Lighting up one's house, say, with a Christmas tree, is a wonderful source of delight, especially during the darkest time of the year. The presence of light warms, the concept of light enlightens. 

My favorite word for the divine is the ancient Tamil word, Kadavul, which literally means "Outside/Inside." Taking light inside is like inviting Kadavul into your home. (This inside/outside dichotomy is a way of indicating what some of us intuit but none of us understand: light (outside) and love (inside) are basically the same thing, as expressed by the statement, God is love). 

Light can warm us, and thus cheer us up, but it is impersonal. The missing piece in this puzzle, what makes mystery personal, is relationship. Schiller, in his immortal poem which became the text of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, perhaps said it best;

Wer ein holdes Weib errugen,

Mische seinen Jubel ein!

That's exactly what we've been doing. The two most important things in life, which are mystically related, light and love, are everywhere and free. 

More light at the time of the 2020 winter solstice informs me that this horrible pandemic is coming to an end. The light of the human mind has produced a vaccine in record time, a secular miracle of sorts. No wonder I'm feeling serene!

If you're not feeling serene, which during these dark times is understandable, try adding more light--and love--into your life. You won't regret it.

Addendum

I forgot to include one of the most famous references to light of all,  the niche sura from the Quran. Here it is an excerpt:

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

His light like a lamp within a niche, of glass like a brilliant star,

Lit from a blessed tree, an olive tree, not from the east nor from the west,

Whose oil would burn and glow even without fire.

Lift upon Light!

God guides to His light whom He wills,,,

Desultory Diary, Episode 38: Good News?

 I'm writing this with less than six weeks to go in the disastrous Trump presidency. Contrary to many dire predictions,  it is increasingly likely that he will leave office with more of a whimper than a bang. He has unleashed a lot of discord, but no war. It is also true, unfortunately, that his whimpers will be amplified by his followers, the cacophony of which will give democracy a headache for a long time to come.

Nevertheless, democracy has won. His attempts to overthrow the presidential election have failed. But, to give a contemporary example, would democracy have won in Belarus? And what about the golden example of Fool's Gold in the past? How was democracy so easily overturned by Hitler?

I think a brief discussion of the disastrous German past can give us reason to be cautiously optimistic about recent American politics.

After Germany lost the First World War, democracy was imposed upon the country by the victorious allies. There had not been a strong tradition of freedom in the country, however, and there were no laws comparable to the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution to guarantee it. Obeying authority with echoes of St. Paul and Martin Luther were stressed. The Weimar Constitution, written with considerable input from the United States was modeled on the American original. It lasted until 1933.

There was a fatal flaw in the document, Paragraph 48, the so-called Notstandsgesetz, The Emergency Law. The Paragraph stated that, "If public security and order are seriously disturbed or endangered within the German Reich, the President of the Reich may take measures necessary for their restoration, intervening if necessary with the assistance of the armed forces." In a country used to authoritarian rule, this was a dangerous directive, which could prove fatal to the rule of law. And so it did.

The codicil was used sparingly during the turbulent twenties, and shouldn't have been used at all. Any use of it gave the impression of rule by fiat. An example of its use was dissolving Parliament and calling for new elections. Note that the assumption of the Emergency Law was that it was intended to be temporary; the return of democracy was to be as soon as possible.

Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933. On February 27, 1933, the Parliament, the Reichstag, was partially destroyed by fire. No one knows to this day what caused the fire, but the Nazis were most likely responsible. Hitler blamed it on the Communists. He subsequently declared martial law, citing paragraph 48. He did this as a means to consolidate power. He never rescinded it. Democracy was finished, until its restoration, after a horrendous war, twelve years later.

In Germany there was no tradition of strong measures of checks and balances; no faith in an independent judiciary or in an independent parliament.

Trump may be seen as a comic, incompetent version of a classic dictator. Modern day Charlie Chaplins e.g. Seth Meyer, Trevor Noah, Steven Colbert, have had no shortage of material. The joke has been on democracy, on us, but, due to Trump's incompetence and America's strong tradition of judicial checks and balances, it has remained on a farcical level. For the time being--victories of democracy are always provisional--democracy has won.

If the country I'm writing from was, say, Belarus, we'd be in a lot more trouble than we are in now.

Trump is like a ladybug; during her lifetime, she never changes her spots. When Trump was just an incompetent real estate mogul, he, as is well known, often stiffed his employees, cheating them out of their salaries. He did this by intimidation: he might be incompetent, but he is an expert in bullying. His wealth enabled him to hire lawyers at will; individual employees didn't have a chance. Throughout his career, he frequently sued them; his suits were often absurd. As an example, he sued Bill Maher for libel because he found a similarity--a joke--between the mean man's mien and that of an orangutan! He was able to do this as a businessman; his strategy was less successful as a president, since government is able to hire lawyers as well. As President, Trump's lawsuits are frequently reported by the press; ridiculous lawsuits thus became ridiculously apparent. 

He got away with his use of the courts as a means of bullying, but not recently. After he lost reelection, he tried to overturn the results with scores of lawsuits, all of which have been thrown out. The recent suit, backed by Trump, where the attorney general of Texas tried to overthrow the results in four swing states--Texas has jurisdiction only over Texas, making the suit doubly ridiculous--was perhaps the most egregious example of Trump's failed strategy. The bully's bulbous nose has become apparent; this fascist is a clown.

Trump, as I have pointed out in many articles, is a pathological narcissist. The worst thing for someone like Trump to come to terms with is defeat. He never encountered defeat before. The fact that he was not impeached, which he interpreted as a stunning success, even though Muller hardly exonerated him, hurtled him into outer/inner space, as it were, much as a rocket uses the orbit of Jupiter as an energy boost to hurl it into the beyond. 

Look into his face during recent photos; the apparent anger and misery indicates that he knows he lost. (A chorus of Loser! Loser! or Lock Him Up! during a rally would undoubtedly drive him wild).

Many of us felt confident that Biden would win--I expected him to win by a greater margin, however-- we were worried of the damage he could do in the lame-duck period. I'm still worried--at the time of this writing we have a month of the lame duck's White Spite to go--but I basically agree with Mary Trump, the President's niece. She has full confidence in his lack of ability. He is basically a Mouth Hero. That, and the American system of checks and balances, is what reveal Trump as playing the clown to Hitler's devil. They are both fascists, but only one had the competence to realize his agenda. And, of course, Trump has no agenda than being the object of adoration; coming out on top is his only ideology.

Although democracy has won, much damage has been done. In a previous article, I presented the image of a "negative pyramid". Trump, at its apex, would fall flat on his face without the support of his base, The boulders immediately under him are the vast majority of Republicans who mostly still support him.

Most Republicans in office have supported Trump's insane attempts to overthrow the will of the people in the last election. They are not stupid; most realize that Trump's view that he won the election is nonsense. They are putting greed before the interest of the nation. They are afraid that a whimper of criticism would lead to their removal from office by Trump's irate yet faithful base.

The self-destruction of the Republican party is indeed bad news; the preservation of a two-party system is vital.

Trump's inane claims that there was widespread fraud in the election is nothing short of another example of a conspiracy theory. This is especially dangerous in our polarized times. Trump is encouraging these theories; he often passes them on via his tweets. It's like giving testosterone shots to men with prostate cancer. Encouraging metastasis of poison in poisonous times--this is the cancer that Trump has been spreading.

Trump is mentally ill--does he really believe what he is saying?  Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps, like Hitler, he is a shrewd populist--perhaps he is knowingly spreading his lies as a means to keep the support of his fanatical base at fever-pitch. I don't know; but it really doesn't matter. Either way, the damage that Trump has done will take years to repair, but it can be repaired. For now, though, I am cautiously optimistic, for democracy has, for the time being, won. Hurrah!

Timothy McVeigh and the Rabbit

Yesterday, as I unfortunately frequently do, I got up in the middle of the night. I usually sit at the computer for a while, read a few articles from the NY Times, and check out the increasingly depressing Covid statistics. One announcement moved me deeply. Trump's Justice Department carried out the execution of Brandon Bernard, age 40, who had been on death's row since the age of eighteen. He had been the driver of a getaway car; the planned robbery went awry and two people were brutally murdered. However, Brandon didn't murder or intend to murder anybody. Some disculpatory evidence had been withheld, the surviving jurors who had convicted him were now against his execution, as well as one of the prosecutors. His behavior in prison was exemplary.

The execution was a national shame.

Trump's team is planning to execute five convicts before Biden assumes office--Biden is against the death penalty. Another example of what I call White Spite. The rush to kill is truly unprecedented; it hasn't occurred in the past 130 years. (In Grover Cleveland's time, the death penalty was rarely questioned.)

Bernard was Black and poor. It is well established that Blacks are much more likely to be executed than whites. It also depends on the state in which a murder occurs. But I'm less interested in all that. I think the death penalty should be outlawed, as it is in Europe, in all cases.

This afternoon, my wife was going through some old papers, and came across an old article of mine, entitled Timothy McVeigh and the Rabbit. I wrote it at the end of Timothy McVeigh's trial for his participation in the  Oklahoma Bombing of 1995. (Some of you might be too young to  remember the incident. McVeigh was what we would call a White Supremacist terrorist today; he hated anything to do with government, and bombed a federal building, during which many died.) I am sorry to say that what I wrote a quarter of  century ago is still pertinent today; I will now quote the article in its entirety.

Timothy McVeigh and the Rabbit

There is a familiar Buddhist tale, typical of many, that concerns one of Buddha's incarnations. According to this symbolic story, the Buddha had cone to Earth as a rabbit. After a long life as a model hutchholder, he roamed the countryside performing good deeds. During a time of famine, he came across a Brahmin who was near death from starvation. A pot of boiling water lay over a fire, but there was no food. The rabbit-Buddha did not hesitate. He shook himself vigorously to save any fleas that might be in his fur, then jumped into the boiling water to become the Brahmin's dinner and thus saved his life.

We Westerners cannot help reacting to the extremism of such stories. I remember being repelled by this rabbit who forgets that the one who loves deserves to live, too; then I looked deeper. If we were less radical in our wrongs, we would need less radical examples to help us become more kind. The ancient Buddhists knew human nature; extreme examples of self-sacrifice were used to lift people towards a more morally balanced life. Without such guides, modern humans have sunk very low indeed. Compassion is in very short supply. A good example is how ardently most of us wish that Timothy McVeigh be put to death. Where is that rabbit now? If he could testify at the penalty hearing of Timothy McVeigh, what would this wonderful rabbit say?

First and foremost, the rabbit's sympathy would go out to all those people whose lives have been devastated by McVeigh's crime. He would listen without judgement to their expressions of vengeance. It is understandable; hate can give temporary shape to the shapelessness that McVeigh injected into their lives, forever. However, what is understandable is not always right. The rabbit would be firmly convinced that in the long run hate always proves to be salt not suture; it can never accomplish so-called closure of their terrible wounds.

What about the rest of us whose lives were not immediately affected by the bombing, who are clamoring that McVeigh receive the death penalty in the name of retributive justice? What about the woman on The Today Show who not only said that death was the appropriate punishment for "that animal," but that the death should be slow and painful? In my mind's ear, I hear the rabbit say, "Thousands of years have passed since my birth; how can it be that people are still the same?" In my mind's eye I see him pack a few carrots and, for the benefit of us all, head straight for Denver. (Editor's note: Denver is where the trial took place.) If he had been allowed to speak, would things have turned out differently?

Let us in our imaginations return to the penalty phase of the trial. Under his spell, Judge Matsch lets him speak. The rabbit cites obvious reasons for his opposition to the death penalty: it doesn't act as a deterrent; it is whimsically and inconsistently applied; it doesn't save taxpayers' money, since the expenses of appeals are more than the expenses of a lifetime of incarceration. Then he speaks from the heart.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, you claim that putting this man to death will help alleviate the suffering of his victims and assuage your anger and grief? I am only a rabbit; I cannot judge you. But many generations after my birth, I will become the Buddha. And as the Buddha, I will have said something which you very much need to hear: 'He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me--those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred. He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me--those who do not harbor such thoughts still their hatred.' Who is right, Buddha or you?" He paused, then looked out to a member of the jury. Her nose had become red. Did she understand? Or was she simply allergic to rabbits? Regardless, the rabbit continued.

"It is clear that hate will get us nowhere. But what about justice? Many of you claim that justice cries out for the death penalty in this case. Is that so? You have this idea, due to the notion of personal responsibility. It is a noble concept; without it none of us can lead a moral life. But I ask you: do we ever know enough about a person to judge him--rather than his behavior? Isn't science teaching us that we are determined in ways we hadn't suspected? Although each of us must hold ourselves accountable for our actions, dare we assume that we know another enough to judge him?"

"Many of you hold a certain historical figure in very high esteem. Did he not say, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged?' Have you forgotten what he said about forgiveness? I am only a rodent, but it seems to me that someone who professes to follow someone without heeding his words is a hypocrite indeed. Humans, are you not ashamed?" A few more noses had become red.

"You may ask, where is justice if we forgive? We must first of all be just to the rest of society. We must assure that McVeigh never commits such  a crime again. the one who did it is much more capable than the average person of doing it again; therefore there should be no possibility of parole.  In my opinion, laws should be there to protect society, rather than to punish or to seek vengeance. As far as higher justice is concerned, remember that McVeigh is still human. Is it possible that, after years of confinement, he will realize the enormity of his crime? What better punishment than that? It also entails the possibility of redemption. God works in strange ways, you say; is it up to you to straighten Him out?"

"In conclusion," said the rabbit, "did not a very famous rabbi, Rabbi Hillel say, 'What you wouldn't want done to yourself, do not do that to others?' Doesn't 'others' include everyone, criminals not excepted? Would you like to be executed by lethal injection?"

By the end of his testimony, every nose had become red. Red with shame, red with emotion, red with joy, for they had gained in wisdom. Only one nose remained unchanged: it lay on the expressionless face of Timothy McVeigh. He was still convinced that the government was evil. He knew that you couldn't make an omelet without breaking eggs. He knew many things. He was a real man. He wasn't about to learn wisdom from a rabbit, especially from a brown one. What about you?

In this photo, the kind personality of Brandon Bernard shines through. He looks more than a little like my son, who is also Black, approximately the same age, and, thank God! still very much alive. R.I.P. Brandon Bernard.

Desultory Diary, Episode 37: White Spite

Current events remind me of a biblical story, contained in Kings 3 16-28. Two women claim to be the mother of the same child. They both had given birth; one infant, however, died. One mother asserts that the other woman's child died from suffocation, having been 'overlaid' by her during the night. She is accused of switching the infants while the other woman slept. The latter wakes up with a dead child at her breast; she recognizes that it isn't hers; she realizes she's been tricked. They both come before King Solomon to decide which woman is the real mother.  He threatens to cut the living child in half with a sword, then give each one half. One agrees; the other says let the child live, even if she will not be able to raise it. The King realizes that the second woman is the true mother, for no one with sound parental instincts would ever allow her child to be killed, even though she would have to give it up. This folk tale is a traditional illustration of the wisdom of King Solomon.

How different is the behavior of would-be King Donald! He continues to divide the country with his little hands on his imaginary sword; the only thing that matters to him is the  continuation of would-be King's Donald's autocratic regime.

Trump was deaf to the ultimate cry of George Floyd, "I can't breathe!" He is equally deaf to similar cries of his countrymen, men and women of all races dying from Covid across the country. Instead of doing his best to help his fellow citizens, he continues to assert that the figurative angels of death plaguing the country do not figuratively exist. According to him, he is America, and America must come first.

It is said, by experts, that if King Donald stopped tearing the country apart, admitted defeat, and permitted President-elect Biden to gain necessary access to data to combat the virus better, many thousands of lives would be saved. His bungling of the epidemic has already caused thousands of lives; King Donald continues to kill.

I'm not surprised. In many of the political blogs I've written, beginning the day after his election in 2016, ("Small Hands Blues," November, 2016), I have asserted that King Donald is mentally ill. As a pathological narcissist, who, as part of his pathology, is so lacking in empathy that an  alpha male ape would appear to be downright Gandhian in comparison, Trump is simply unable to act like a mensch. 

In 1959, the once-famous football coach, Vince Lombardi, said, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing," quoting what a less famous coach declared in 1950. This view is bad enough when applied to a game--when that attitude characterizes how one plays the 'game of life,' however, the results, for the individual as well as for those around him, are poison dart in the quiver of untrammeled vanity.

It is said that Fred Trump, Donald's father, ruined his son by dunning the gospel of narcissism into his son's head. If so, the damage he did has been prodigious. He created a monster, an orange Godzilla who unwittingly has been stomping on Liberty's beacon of freedom, threatening to dim it into a will o' the wisp in an undrained swamp.

I must admit that I had his number down before the election. The racism and inhumanity of the birther movement and Trump's plea for the execution of the Central Park Five left no doubt in my mind that this man was an inveterate danger to democracy. His current inhumanity is just as apparent now as it was then.

I would have sympathy for Trump if he didn't have the power to cause such harm. Trump's pathology doesn't allow him to accept the greatest defeat of his life, namely, Biden's victory. His disappointment must be very great indeed, comparable to a fundamentalist, who, convinced that the end of the world was coming on Friday, wakes up on Saturday under a pagan, indifferent sun, still sending no message from a cerulean sky. His illness will never permit him to concede.

If King Donald gets his way, however, he will either get his kingdom back or the end of his world--and possibly ours-- will arrive before January 21st. We have reason to be anxious

It is my opinion, however, that the current farce will play out as farce. King Donald's jester, Giuliani, does not have enough hair-dye and pratfalls to keep us laughing for much longer. But the joke, of course, could still be on us.

I listen to news in Spanish nearly every night; recently, I learned a new word, 'berrinche' a word used to characterize Trump's post-defeat behavior. It means 'tantrum.'  Defeat has removed King Donald's panoply, revealing who he, figuratively, is: a full-grown baby in diapers, screaming for his daddy underneath.

Poem: My Favorite Color

 

My Favorite Color

    --for Kathleen Trestka

 

What would I do alone with a gun,

if both of us were loaded?

They’d find—one bloody, one empty--shells?

 

And if I shot up the TV,

they’d only find, hangovered, me?

What if I continued to lie and to be

 

next week—because I don’t drink?

When my cash is also spent,

what if I got up and went?

 

You’d have to come back. As an ant?

What if flesh macho-dressed

like a successful ape?

 

A newspaper’s banana stain

and a pocket handgun beside trash

prove Tarzan dropped off during lunch?

 

I’m kidding. As long as neurons convert

wavelengths to hues, I’m content;

yellow is enough.

 

 

                                  Thomas Dorsett

                   --first published in Blue Unicorn, Fall 2020

Desultory Diary, Episode 36: No More Small Hands Blues! Orange is the New Orange!

1. 

"Thank you!," I said to my son over the phone. 

"Well, you're welcome," he replied. But why are you thanking me?"

"Thank you for electing Biden! You belong to a community which came out in force; its members overwhelmingly voted Democratic. Without its support, Trump would have won! 

It's true. The African-American community voted in large numbers. Well over 80% chose Biden. Blacks are the only group who really got Trump's number. One in three Blacks live in  swing state and were thus crucial in achieving a majority for Biden in these states. If non-college educated white males somehow replaced the Black population in Georgia, the largest of any state in the country, you know what would have happened. The king of the birther movement has been unveiled, revealing a babbling old Ego, a Fool with his bauble, a shameless, fey orangey head.

Comunidad latina, che pasò?  Too many of you voted for him. 

I recall seeing an elderly Black lady on TV, who said, "If Trump were running against a flowerpot, I'd vote for the flowerpot." That's what she said. And that's the way my son, wife, and I feel as  well.

How could one support a man who wanted to bring back the death penalty in order to execute five mostly Black teens, who were railroaded into confessing a crime they didn't commit? (Even worse: when their innocence was proven after years in jail, Trump didn't want to let them out.) How can one forgive a man who promised to 'drain the swamp' of human beings, only to replace them with alligators? How can one still believe this inveterate liar? (I recall what Mary McCarthy said about Lilian Hellman: 'Even when she says a or the, it's a lie.') What else has this orangutan done? He withdrew our nation from W.H.O. and the Paris Accord; he's done nothing, with little time left, to combat climate change; he's has embarrassed America before allies; he has cozied up to dictators, etc. I could go on, but will end this list of his malfeasances with Covid! Covid! Covid! If he hadn't bungled the Covid crisis, thousands of Americans would be alive today.

2.

Many people thought there would be violence after the election. So far, there has been little.

I did my best  not to pity Trump while he was in office, since he was doing such damage to our country. I imagine being a narcissist, and a particularly needy one at that, isn't easy. He certainly didn't look like he was enjoying those last press conferences.

Trained by his father to win at all costs, he sacrificed everything in the service of ego, his shameless little  god with a gargantuan mouth. As president, until the epidemic hit, he had been extraordinarily lucky. The economy was good and the unemployment rate was low for most of his term. For this reason much of his nonsense and lies were glossed over.  A good example of this was his insistence that  he received the popular vote and that the size of the crowd at  his inauguration was larger than Obama's.  In the first case, he insisted that millions of illegal aliens voted for Clinton; in the second case, well, anyone who looked at the photographs could see that Obama's inaugural crowd was much larger. Liberal pundits, for a while at least, enjoyed pointing out Trump's  spoiled-childlike denial of reality. Then life went on. Now that he lost the election, his inane claim that there was widespread voter fraud, is something he can't get away with; no one can alter the reality that he is eventually going to have to vacate the White House. 

This is the biggest defeat Trump has had in his life; it is now part of history. Pathological narcissists can't accept defeat. I doubt if he will concede the election any time soon. I also doubt that he will ever give a concession speech. Is is not in his nature to do so. 

He will go on claiming that the election was stolen from him; maybe he'll go back to "reality" TV. His claims will continue to be preposterous, but one look at him will convince a perceptive person that he knows that a rousing defeat has come to the Donald. (Another real possibility: he's going to jail.)

A narcissist's life tends to end badly, if he lives long enough. Now he's just a fat, old, angry man with a gold club. There are many such in Florida; his retirement, however, will not be a happy one.

I've written many blogs over the last four years, chronicling America's decline under Trump. I look forward to writing more on other topics. After the debacle of Vietnam and Iraq, America has little buffer room left to prevent a sad decline. We can't afford another childish, ignorant, boorish, liar like him in the White House ever again. 

3.

Mozart's Don Giovanni, Act 1. Scene 1

The masked Don Giovanni has attempted to seduce Donna Anna. The scene opens as she is chasing him down the stairs. (She had screamed; the rape didn't happen). The noise awakes her father who duels with Giovanni, who kills him. Donna Anna, just before her father was killed, escapes. She returns and encounters her lover, Don Ottavio, who just happened to be walking by. (Things like this happen in opera frequently.) She explains what happens in a dramatic recitative. When she gets to high point, Ottavio believes that Don Giovanni has been successful and sings, "Ohime! Narrate--" which could be translated as, "O My God! Continue--" When he discovers that Donna Anna gave out a loud scream which sent Giovanni packing, he sings, "Respiro!" I translate this one Italian word into idiomatic English as, "I can breathe again!"

Trump  has done his best to rape Lady Liberty, but, thank God, he wasn't successful.

RESPIRO!!

Desultory Dairy, Episode 35: Trumpsters and the Birds of Prey

1.

I am writing this on November 3rd, 2020, on the eve of the American national election. It is certainly the most important election in my lifetime; it is no exaggeration to assert that American democracy is on the line. A very imperfect yet worthy struggle to establish a more perfect union might be coming to an end. Tomorrow--or perhaps as late as next week--we will find out whether we wake up in purgatory or in hell. (Hell if Trump wins, purgatory if Biden wins, for if the latter wins, the fight is just beginning, since serious problems, e.g. climate change, will remain. In purgatory, however, at least there is hope).

Today I was scheduled to have two injections, one in each eye. I knew that I would have to give reading a rest for a while after this procedure, so I decided to read as much as I could beforehand. One of the articles I read was, "The Great Con He Rode In On,"

 by Mark Donner, which appeared in the November 19, 2020 edition of The New York Review of Books. It was, forgive the pun, an eye opener; it confirmed my worst suspicions.

The author attended a Trump rally in Michigan and wrote the following:

The dynamic playing out before me was ancient: Already Nietzsche was calling it 'resentissement,' and had he been transported to Freeland, Michigan, the German philologist would have recognized instantly what he was seeing enacted before him, a kind of Mummers' revolt of the powerless:

"The resentissement of natures that are denied the true reaction, the reaction of deeds, and compensate themselves with imaginary revenge... This no is its creative deed''.

Nietzsche referred to the hostility of the powerless as "the resentment of the lambs for the bird of prey." Immortal words! Note that birds of prey carry off lambs only when they're small and vulnerable enough. Since we are talking metaphors here, I  interpret Nietzsche's quote as it applies to our current political crisis as follows: the Trump supporters must be powerless and vulnerable enough for the birds of prey to be able to continue to feed upon them

The German word for 'bird of prey' is Raubvogel, a much more law-of-the-jungle term compared to the English one, which comes across as being more taxonomic and abstract. I immediately googled "Nietzsche und die Raubvögel" and got the following excerpt, which, in my translation, follows:

That lambs detest birds of prey is not surprising; yet this doesn't hinder the predators from continuing to carry them off.

The metaphor is almost apt to the present situation; almost because American lambs have no idea who's controlling the skies. They are also armed to the teeth.

2.

Donner mentions that, during the rally, Trump, using the 'royal we,' claimed that 'we brought you a lot of car plants, Michigan. We brought you a lot of car plants. You know that, right?' The crowd went wild even though the statement is a blatant lie: there have been no new car plants in Michigan. But who's counting? Certainly not the crowds of people gathered together without social distancing, and for the most part, without wearing masks.

What has especially irked health care workers is Trump's recent claim, which he delivered at another rally, that doctors get paid more when a Covid patient dies.

Many pundits were outraged. But this normal reaction fails to understand what is really going on here. In one sense Trump's lies are the rants of a madman. But Trump is more clever than you might think; they are also the rants of a master populist. He knows what his base wants to hear. 

It is also a mistake to dismiss Trump supporters as mere racists. After all, many of them voted for Obama in the past. When you feel humiliated; when you feel lost; when you feel angry, you  often boost yourself up by putting others down. And racism, unfortunately, still remains a common font of scapegoating in the white working-class community. When a Trump supporter, for instance, hears "Black Lives Matter," he just might reply, "Don't we?"

For many of them feel they don't matter at all. 

3.

Many years ago I worked with a nurse who worked in a psychiatric hospital on the weekends. She told me that many of the men had abrasions on their penises; they spent a good deal of their time obsessively masturbating. They had nothing else left, except for a sexual fix.

Trump is like a whore telling her client during intercourse, "You're a man! You're bigly important! You're tough and sooo powerful!" It doesn't matter if what is being said is a lie; what matters is that it makes the exploited feel good. 

Pseudo sex as imaginary revenge! The master of imaginary revenge says, " Come, come, come..."

They keep on coming. And he keeps on getting richer.

Desultory Diary, Episode 35: A Letter from Germany

 Lieber Thomas!

I thought you might like to know the effect your elections are having on us Germans, at least the way I see it. (You guessed it. We're in shock).

I listened to the first debate between Trump and Biden. Then I listened to a speech our Chancellor, Angela Merkel, gave in 2015, when she addressed The World Health Organization. Chancellor Merkel was a scientist before she became a politician. Her speech had the no-nonsense approach of a professor giving a lecture on physics. Trump came across as a madman; he shouted and sneered, and interrupted his opponent countless times.

In Germany, by the way, no politician can behave the way Trump did that night. Such histrionics would remind the public of Hitler too much. I w a s reminded of Hitler a little bit, I must confess. Our dictator was admittedly much worse and presided over horrible crimes; your would-be dictator reminded me more or less of a boorish, clownish, pitiful imitation. Hitler, due to the lack of what you call "checks and balances", was able to declare a state of emergency and usher in a reign of terror--supported, I might add, by many Germans at that time. You still have a functioning Congress, independent judiciary, and Constitution, etc. But for how long?

I remember an old DEFA, East German, movie about a Jewish doctor in 1930 who worried about the disaster that coming. "Don't worry," his wife told him, "Wir leben in einem Rechtsstaat." We all know how that turned out.

In this world, especially after the horrors of the past century, one cannot afford to take freedoms for granted. Trump has been undermining them. Please do all you can to stop him!

Recent American politics have brought me to a new assessment of your country. Growing up after World War ll, I remember playing in rubble as a child; our country lay in ruins. Then came the Marshall Plan. We looked up to your country and acknowledged it as the leader of the free world, which sure as hell needed one. (It still does). You were the good guys; the Communists were the devils. There was, of course, strict censorship before we gained independence again in 1955, but we needed to trust you and continued to do so, because we had lost trust in ourselves.

We focused on the economy and succeeded, at least materially. Then came 1968. We realized that our country had not been purged of Nazis as East Germany had been. America looked the other way; they accepted former Nazis' help in their fight against communism. 'What did your parents do during the war?' 'Had your professor been a Nazi supporter?' These were the questions we began to ask; many of the answers were devastating.

We still looked up to you, however. Then came the Vietnam War. Many of us continued to support you, but to a lesser degree. 9/11, however, resulted in a tidal wave of sympathy among most Germans. Then came the War in Iraq. Many still looked up to you, but less and less and less. Then came Trump.

What are we supposed to feel now? Pity?

You still lack universal health care; your prison system is a mess;  you still deny climate change; your social safety net is full of gaping holes; Trump's constant lies remind us of Goebbels', etc. etc.

Do you realize the danger of the situation you're in? We share your danger by default, because as Kissinger said, Germany is too big for Europe and too small for the world.

We don't want to be world leaders; we want to be part of a coalition which helps make the world a little better. We want to look up to you again--we know now that you're imperfect, but, God knows, so are we. If America's democracy fails, how long will ours last?

I hope November 3rd brings the world good news. If it doesn't, God help us!

Dein alter Freund,

Michael

Meditation, A Poem

 

 

Meditation

 

O you used thimble lying in a dresser drawer.

O you used match.

 

Concentrate on rough and tumble;

lost become mythology:

 

Charybdis as a grain of salt, Scylla

as peppercorn. Which worse is which?

 

Let no soul bob up and down like a cork.

Suffer unborn children. It lasts,

 

do not forget as you run, it lasts.

The mind’s eye is a window to black holes.

 

Self is a loose ball of string.

You are the world; disconnect from everything.

Thomas Dorsett

First published in California Quarterly, 

Vol. 46, No. 3, Fall 2020

Reflections on the Current Pandemic

 How did we get into this mess? How do we get out of it?

Don't blame the virus--(You can if you want to, the virus doesn't care). Covid-19  is, of course, the necessary cause for the current epidemic; without it, no infections would occur. But what about sufficient causes that can make the epidemic worse? Things like weather, susceptibility of the host, etc., and, especially, failure of hosts' brains to combat the spread of disease, using proven methods to do so.

Viruses have been around a very long time; viruses and bacteria are thought to have evolved from a common ancestor, which lived about 3.4 billion years ago, shortly after life on Earth began. Bacteriophages are viruses that attack bacteria, forcing the latter to replicate their genetic material, destroying them  in the process. One form of life devouring another in order to survive did not start with animals; viruses might not be red, might not have teeth, might not have claws, but they are "red in tooth and claws" as anything else in nature.

Humans have not developed antibodies against the Covid-19 virus to the degree that herd immunity (community protection) has been reached--only about 4% of the global human population has been infected with the virus to date; probably 60% or more would need to become infected to achieve herd immunity. Millions would have to die before this is achieved, underscoring the inhumanity of those who would like us to achieve herd immunity in this way.

Bacteria, however, have been around a long time, and have developed a defense, the so-called CRISPR-Cas9 system. Recently, we humans have developed a way to use this system as a form of genetic manipulation of genes, including human genes. For this, Jennifer Doudna of Berkeley has (very deservedly) won  a recent Nobel Prize.

Nature takes her own time in developing defenses, which is not human time. Who knows how many billions and billions of bacteria had to die, perhaps over millions of years,  before the CRISP-Ca9 arose to protect them?

The development of cures and effective treatments by science, however, have been a lot quicker.

One of the reasons Covid-19 is so contagious is because it is an aerosolized virus, that is, the unit of contagion is much smaller than droplets, which do not travel as far. Another aerosolized infection is tuberculosis, which is thus highly contagious as well.

Keats, Chopin, Kafka, are among the countless numbers of those who succumbed to TB. Like Covid-19, TB is a horrible death. ("I can't breathe," says the victim. "Who cares?" says the TB bacillus). Keats died this horrible death. Here's what Bryon had to say about the author of Ode to a Nightingale, who died at the age of 24:

John Keats, who was killed off by one critique,

Just as he really promised something great,

If not intelligible, without Greek

Contrived to talk of the Gods of late,

Much as they might have been supposed to talk.

Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;

'Tis strange, the mind, that very fiery particle,

Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.

In those days, that is, two centuries go, "consumption" was thought to be caused by an emotional crisis. (Keats did receive some bad reviews, but that's not what killed him! Viruses and bacilli may be indifferent to human suffering, but humans can be quite cruel, as Byron's darkly humorous lines attest).

We have come a long way. We know now how to avoid infections from aerosolized organisms, even before specific treatment is available. It's not rocket science, just science: wear a mask, avoid large gatherings, and maintain social distancing.

The United States is the richest country in the world. For those who can afford it, it offers top-notch health care. The virus is neither American, Russian or Chinese, white or Black, male or female--its indifference is much more ancient than any of these distinctions.

Before all this happened, one might assume that the United States, the most powerful country in the world, would have been among the world leaders in controlling the spread of infection. This isn't what has happened at all. How can it be that our country, which has about 4% of the world's population has about 25% of the world's Covid-19 fatalities?

The answer is obvious. It is due to the incompetence of our political leaders. They ignore--not to mention flout--science. Viral indifference combined with human incompetence can be a very deadly combination.

What if politicians in Keats's day knew what causes tuberculosis yet recommended that one should not keep a social distance from victims of this very asocial disease?  What would we think of Hamilton today if he advocated coughing in each other's face?

Even now, our incompetent president is holding rallies without requiring masks or adequate space between spectators. It is a national disgrace.

Cooler weather--it is now fall--is forcing people indoors, a sufficient cause for the current uptick in infections. Another sufficient cause is having a superspreader president.

I'm writing this about one week before our presidential election on November 3rd. If we elect Trump again, it is likely that many more will needlessly die from this controllable disease. This, combined with all the thousands of Americans who would still be alive today if those we elected had been responsible, is horrifying.

The virus is indifferent, but I'm not. Nor, I hope, are you.

Desultory Diary, Episode 34: A Mail-In Ballot Poem

 It's still not here! My wife and I requested  mail-in ballots months ago. She received hers weeks ago and has already voted. I chose to receive mine by mail. Some neighbors have received theirs. Where's mine?

Misdelivered? Lost in the mail? Undoubtedly one of the two.

Baltimore's mail--at least ours--has never been very good. It has become worse since Louis deJoy, a rich Republican donor and avid Trump-supporter, became Postmaster General in May. As we all know by now Trump asserts, without any evidence, that mail-in ballots invite fraud. Following Trump's wishes, one presumes, deJoy has done his best to slow the mail down. He has succeeded. Some days we get no mail at all. Some days we get the wrong mail. This never happened before. It's a little better now, since public protests have caused deJoy to partially mend his ways. So where's my ballot?

Good news! Today I got an e-mail from the Board of Elections, informing me that a new ballot should arrive within one week; I can hardly believe it. Will I be watching out for the mailman? You bet.

Last night--for unknown reasons--was one of those relatively rare nights when I couldn't sleep. I spent the time writing two poems in my head as I lay in bed. This is one of them. I hope my happiness shows.

Almost Empty

Happiness is a ballot;

sadness is none;

like us, sometimes mails fail;

they tell me they'll send another one.

This time my choice is clear:

purgatory or hell, for

even if the best man wins,

serious problems remain.

Too old for the polls, yet

too young to give up,

what does this citizen want?

He wants you. Everyone?

(A heart that loves this country

yet doesn't feign or swoon

for the likes of Kim Jong-un,

is this too much to ask?)

Everyone. (A ballot box

helps keep Pandora's open)--

Do not abandon hope--

This is still America!

Vote

10/12/2020 Update

I received my mail-in ballot today; filled it out--Guess who I voted for--and will mail it tomorrow. Endlich!

10/28/2020 update: The ballot is marked "received"--The status hasn't changed for the past five days. They must be swamped! At least it's not rejected. (Yet?)

10/30/2020 5 A.M. On the Election Board's website, "Ballot Received" has been changed to "Ballot Accepted." At last!

Desultory Diary, Episode 33: Hamilton

 Shortly after listening a few times to Lin-Manuel Miranda's spectacular musical, Hamilton, a friend gave me a copy of the monumental, eponymous biography by Ron Chernow, which turned out to be equally spectacular. You might think it odd for me to classify a 731-page biography as a page-turner, but it is just that. The print was small and the pages large; the words at the end blurred, but the messages my bleary eyes conveyed to my brain were well worth it. I wrote down a few quotes as I read, some of which I will present now with brief comments. All quotes are by Hamilton, unless otherwise indicated.

1. "The more I see, the more I find reason for those who love this country to weep over its blunders."

Thank God, Mr. Hamilton, that you didn't live to see the mess our country is in now. I wish, though, that you were still among us--we certainly could use a brilliant Renaissance man like you now. Not only did you have encyclopedic knowledge of subjects as diverse as finance, the military, and the law; not only did you, along with Madison--mostly you--compose the many essays of the Federalist Papers, which are still widely read and applicable to our situation today, you were blessed with  nearly superhuman energy to help you help your adopted country succeed.

When one thinks of all the material gains humanity has accrued since the eighteenth century--electricity, indoor plumbing, devices in medicine and dentistry, the digital revolution, etc. etc., one is amazed. (So much suffering has been alleviated--one thinks of the pain Washington had to endure with his wooden dentures with teeth made from the teeth of a hippopotamus, which caused intractable sores by rubbing against the one tooth he had left in his head. One also thinks of the mortal wound Hamilton received from Aaron Burr in that ill-fated 1804 duel; today he might have survived).

Scientific progress continues unabated. We are plunging deeper and deeper into space; permanent cures for diseases that have plagued humanity for centuries are on the horizon; medical treatments today would astound you, General Hamilton, you who lived in an age when bloodletting and cold baths were the primary treatment for yellow fever, etc. etc.

Still...

Our emotional makeup hasn't evolved much in the past 100,000 years. Inside, we're still fighters and flighters. A caveman with nuclear weapons is indeed a frightful thing.

Hamilton liked democracy but feared a government led by masses of the undereducated. Alas! Mr. Hamilton, newspaper headlines today would hardly change your mind. Things, I think, have gotten worse.

Two quotes come to mind:

Progress is a comfortable disease--e.e.cummings

We are discovering the right things in the wrong order, which is another way of saying that we are learning now to control nature before we have learned to control ourselves--Raymond Fosdick

2. A quote from the book: "A man of irreproachable integrity, Hamilton severed  all outside sources of income while in office, something which Jefferson and Madison failed to do."

Oy! Otherwise, no comment.

3. "To have given up these men to their masters, after assurance of protection had been given to them, would have been unjustified."

During the Revolutionary War, Blacks were invited to fight for the British in exchange for their freedom. After the war, slave owners, as part of a peace treaty with Britain, wanted them back. Hamilton helped assure that this wasn't done.

Hamilton was a life-long abolitionist. In contrast to the slave-owning Jefferson, Hamilton insisted that Blacks weren't a jot inferior to whites. He wanted to abolish slavery at the end of the war, but soon realized that the southern states would cede from the union to prevent this, which they eventually did.

Thus, the despicable practice of slavery continued. We should have listened to you, Mr. Hamilton; we all would  be so much better off today, if we had.

4.Another quote from the book: "But he was so often worried about abuses committed against the rich,, that he sometimes minimized the skulduggery committed by the rich."

I doubt if Hamilton could ever have imagined the crimes American oligarchs continue to freely commit against the vast majority of Americans today. If he did, I am convinced he would have, as a founding father, written something that might have curbed their vicious greed.

Today, the top 1% of the most wealthy Americans own 40% of the nation's wealth, 50% of the stocks and 24% of the national income. This is obscene. I am sure Hamilton would agree.

4. If the party elected Burr, it would be exposed "to the disgrace of a defeat in an attempt to elevate to the first place in government one of the worst men in the community."

Burr was bad, but compared to the current president, he looks, well, damn good. (An African-American lady recently said that if a flowerpot was running against Trump, she'd vote for the flowerpot.) What would Hamilton have said and done if he had to live under the present administration? A lot.

Alexander Hamilton, I wish you were here. We need you desperately.

5. "Wars often proceed from angry and perverse passions than from calculation of interest."

All too true. This could have been written today. A principal contender for a perverse passion would be greed.

6. "The existence of a Deity has been questioned and in some instances denied, the duty of piety has been ridiculed, the perishable nature of man asserted, and his hope bound to the short span of his earthly state. Death has been proclaimed an eternal sleep."

Hamilton was criticizing here the professed atheism of the French Revolution and the supposed atheism of Jefferson. Jefferson, however, was not an atheist,  but a deist, a belief which asserted, basically, that God got the universe going, but then withdraw from it completely. First came God, then came Newton whose mechanistic theory of the universe reigned supreme for many thinkers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Then came the quantum revolution of the twentieth century, which arguably has made God unnecessary even as a prime mover. I can't agree with Hamilton here, but most people still do--even in the twenty-first century. I doubt if Hamilton would have written the same lines if he were alive today.

Nevertheless, I repeat: Alexander Hamilton, you were a genus; wish you were still with us.

Desultory Diary, Episode 32: Covid Testing

I just made appointments for my wife and me to have Covid-19 testing tomorrow, October 3, 2020, at a drive-in facility near our home.

My wife began to have a problem  yesterday, a sore throat without any other symptoms. Her throat is indeed inflamed and it hurts for her to swallow. Normally, we wouldn't be worried about this at all. But these are not normal times.

I am concerned because she is a physician, and, although elderly, continues to see patients. (Wearing PPE, of course!) She cant help thinking, What about that kid I saw yesterday, who had a cough...

Even though she is long past normal retirement age, she has in her favor that she is in otherwise in excellent health--and has her gender in her favor as well. (Elderly men with Covid die at twice the rate of elderly females. Still...)

Her symptom started on the same day it was announced that Trump and the First Lady tested positive as well. (Do we feel any schadenfreude? No. Pity; for him and for us.) Trump has been reckless; we have been cautious. Nevertheless, thanks to Trump's bungled handling of the pandemic, the chances of getting infected are a lot higher than anyone in his right mind would like.

Robert R. Redfield, the Director of the CDC, has stated that if we all followed the simple guidelines of wearing a mask and practicing social distancing, the pandemic would be under control in about 12 months. We have been following those guidelines; Trump and many of his followers haven't.

Redfield even stated that a mask and maintaining social distancing are even more effective in combating the pandemic that a vaccine would be.

Staying home while Trump flouts science has made me furious. His followers--how there can be more than a dozen amazes me after all he's done and hasn't done--many of whom pack rallies without wearing masks and while sitting close together--keep people like us, who do follow science, at home for much longer than necessary.

We are among the lucky ones. So many people have become unemployed; so many people are in danger of eviction; so many people can't put food on the table; worst of all, too too many people are dying from an affliction that "is what it is" but didn't have to be.

Yes, I am furious, but I am also worried and beleaguered.

The day before yesterday we dropped off my wife's mail-in ballot at a designated location. I have yet to receive mine. Guess whom we're voting for?

Trump's rage against imaginary fraud regarding mail-in ballots is especially reprehensible. As a means of suppressing voters; as a means of forcing voters to vote in person which will greatly increase the likelihood of more infections, Trump's touting of mail fraud is a meme and a means to foster the only end he knows: himself.

We would rather be visiting friends. We would rather be in a theatre. We would rather be at the gym, etc. We would rather not have to be tested for a plague, which, thanks to our Bungler-in-Chief, rages on.

Desultory Diary: Episode Thirty-One: Onam in New York

 

We have so many to choose from! Fact checkers have compiled a list of some 20,000 lies and inaccuracies since Trump assumed office. Here's one of my favorites among the most recent: When asked why he has been downplaying the virus that has caused so much devastation, he replied that he actually had been 'upplaying' the virus!

 

This might take some explanation--which I will provide--but the lying Maha-Belly reminds me of the truthful Mahabali, the mythological king of ancient Kerala, located in South India.

 1.

Mahabali was a very good king indeed. He presided over what could be called the Golden Age of the Kingdom of Kerala; there were no thieves, no strife, no problems of inequality, much like the Golden Age of Greek lore. In Indian mythology, when a mortal becomes so good that he impinges on the divine, the gods get jealous. Thus, to test the king,  Lord Vishnu assumed his fifth incarnation among ten, that of the Brahmin dwarf, Vamana.

 

Vamana approached and asked Mahabali for some land. The King, good man that he was, agreed to give him as much land as he wanted. Vamana requested that he be permitted to measure out the boon by taking three steps. How far can a dwarf get with three steps, the King said to himself, and agreed.

 

The dwarf, being an avatar of Lord Vishnu Himself, thereupon assumed cosmic proportions. With the first step, Vishnu spans the Heavens; with the second, he spans the entire Earth.  With nowhere else to go, Vishnu places his foot upon the head of Mahabali, atthe king's request, and pushes him down to the netherworld.  Like Persepone, Mahabali returns to Kerala once a year, symbolizing, perhaps, that traces of the Golden Age, though exceedingly rare in the current Age of Lead, still flash up occasionally and fan 'fresh our wits with wonder.' His annual return is commemorated by the South Indian holiday of Onam.

 

Now let’s update the tale for the current Age of Lead. I call it Onam in New York. In this tale the characters are reversed: Vamana, the dwarf, becomes Mega-Belly, President Trump; King Mahabali becomes Truth Itself, the eleventh avatar of Vishnu.

 

The scene is in front of Trump Towers in New York. Maha-Belly,  more old and feeble than he is now, is at the point of death. He approaches Truth for a final reckoning.

 

Maha-Belly: I had a nightmare last night that I am doomed for a terrible rebirth.

 

Truth: You opposed me your entire life. Your karma is as negative as it gets. Greed demands that you be reborn in hell as a Hungry Ghost, that is, a beast the size of an elephant with a pin-sized head. A huge body combined with the ability to eat of an ant guarantees that you’ll suffer the torments of a hunger which is never satisfied. Your mendacity, however, demands that you be reborn as a dung beetle. Your choice.

 

Mega-Belly: No hope? I was, however, a malignant narcissist; can’t I claim the innocence of the piri-loose, the baityam, the mad?

 

Truth: No. Yes, you were nuts enough to make a squirrel salivate, but sane enough to know right from wrong. I will, however, give you a chance to do better. You’re such a mess that I can’t promise much. Perhaps instead of a hungry ghost you will be reborn as a semi-satisfied spectral moron; perhaps instead of a dung beetle you’ll be reborn as—well, I can’t do much about that, but I can try. Tell me three truths and I might be able to have you reborn as a bluebottle, aka a blow fly, aka. as a carrion fly. At least you’d be able to spread your wings and fly—albeit from carrion to carrion.

 

Meg-Belly: I have done more for Blacks with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.

 

Trump’s Pinocchio nose thereupon assumed cosmic proportions.

 

Mega-Belly: Climate change is a hoax.

 

Trump’s Pinocchio nose thereupon encircled the earth.

 

Truth: You now have nowhere to go. Can’t you tell the truth even once? This is your last chance.

 

Mega-Belly: I have done a fantastic job with the epidemic. I could not have done better. Besides, a vaccine is coming which will heal the public by providing Herd Mentality.

 

He babbles on and on and drives Truth into the ground. Soon Truth’s chthonic voice is heard from the depths: Oy, Oy, Oy!

 

At least this is certain: dung beetles will survive the ravages of climate change.

 

2.

The future hungry ghost, the future dung beetle once infamously claimed that he is “a very stable genius.”  I wonder if he knows he’s lying and ignorant, or whether he’s doing his best to cover it up. Recent revelations in Bob Woodward’s book, Rage, lead me to believe that he knows more than he pretends to. This makes matters worse, since his cover-up regarding the handling of the Covid epidemic indicates deliberate failures to protect the American people. Even before his disastrous rebirth, he possesses the empathy of a dung beetle.

One of the most egregious examples of his idiocy is when he asked Dr. Birx, the national Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator, a renowned scientist, whether injecting bleach into humans would be an effective means to combat the epidemic. This evinces the knowledge of virology of a picturebookish toddler. Any sane person would have run this quack idea before an expert (or even a picturebookish toddler) before blurting out this humiliating theory in a national press conference. One can conclude that this semiliterate moron really believes that he is a genius, and his bleach theory would finally bring the fame his neediness so craves.

 

After the notorious press conference, I wrote the following poem, entitled, “Bleach or Water”—

 

Neighbors, do not get uptighter,

Trump just wants to make us whiter—

Let’s blanch our inner Mexican

Back into John Wayne again: drink bleach!

 

Fallen from their privileged nests

Into multi-colored mud, souls

Flap about in muck like crows;

Burn them into turtledoves. Drink bleach!

 

Though you might turn Kelly green

Let your insides churn pristine,

For white is pure. So, do not go chiaroscuro;

This is not the Renaissance. Drink bleach!

 

Yet, despite President Narcissus,

America still has a choice: Science or Trump;

Whatever the Mad Hatter says,

Let us do the opposite! Drink water.

 

 

3.

Vote.