battle is sometimes
to the small, bigger they are
the harder they fall

The Elephant Who Challenged the World

An elephant who lived in Africa woke up one morning with the conviction that he could defeat all the other animals in the world in single combat, one at a time. He wondered that he hadn’t thought of it before. After breakfast he called first on the lion. “You are only the King of Beasts,” bellowed the elephant, “whereas I am the Ace!” and he demonstrated his prowess by knocking the lion out in fifteen minutes, no holds barred. Then in quick succession he took on the wild boar, the water buffalo, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the giraffe, the zebra, the eagle, and the vulture, and he conquered them all. After that the elephant spent most of his time in bed eating peanuts, while the other animals, who were now his slaves, built for him the largest house any animal in the world had ever had. It was five stories high, solidly made of the hardest woods to be found in Africa. When it was finished, the Ace of Beasts moved in and announced that he could pin back the ears of any animal in the world. He challenged all comers to meet him in the basement of the big house, where he had set up a prize ring ten times the regulation size.

Several days went by and then the elephant got an anonymous letter accepting his challenge. “Be in your basement tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock,” the message read. So at three o’clock the next day the elephant went down to the basement to meet his mysterious opponent, but there was no one there, or at least no one he could see. “Come out from behind whatever you’re behind!” roared the elephant. “I’m not behind anything,” said a tiny voice. The elephant tore around the basement, upsetting barrels and boxes, banging his head against the furnace pipes, rocking the house on its foundations, but he could not find his opponent. At the end of an hour the elephant roared that the whole business was a trick and a deceit—probably ventriloquism—and that he would never come down to the basement again.

“Oh, yes you will,” said the tiny voice. “You will be down here at three o’clock tomorrow and you’ll end up on your back.”

The elephant’s laughter shook the house. “We’ll see about that,” he said.

The next afternoon the elephant, who slept on the fifth floor of the house, woke up at two-thirty o’clock and looked at his wristwatch. “Nobody I can’t see will ever get me down to the basement again,” he growled, and went back to sleep. At exactly three o’clock the house began to tremble and quiver as if an earthquake had it in its paws. Pillars and beams bent and broke like reeds, for they were all drilled full of tiny holes. The fifth floor gave way completely and crashed down upon the fourth, which fell upon the third, which fell upon the second, which carried away the first as if it had been the floor of a berry basket. The elephant was precipitated into the basement, where he fell heavily upon the concrete floor and lay there on his back, completely unconscious. A tiny voice began to count him out. At the count of ten the elephant came to, but he could not get up. “What animal are you?” he demanded of the mysterious voice in a quavering tone which had lost its menace.

“I am the termite,” answered the voice.

The other animals, straining and struggling for a week, finally got the elephant lifted out of the basement and put him in jail. He spent the rest of his life there, broken in spirit and back.

Moral: The battle is sometimes to the small, for the bigger they are the harder they fall.

Draw your own conclusions as to my point in posting this story today.

But I will ask you a historical question.

How are FDR and that current man in office a like?

They both turned the Democratic Party around in one election.

Truthfully, I have so much I want to say and so much I need to wait to say.

But so much I want to say has been said by others and what has happened pretty much speaks for itself.

But I am happy to say I am happy.

The battle is sometimes to the small, for the bigger they are the harder they fall.

Sometimes, the good guys DO win.

Those fellers who we call founding fathers who had faith in the people WERE right.

So here we are.

As Mr. Lincoln said, we, even we here, hold the power … and bear the responsibility.

preeminently
time to speak truth, the whole truth …
frankly and boldly

Adapted from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1st inaugeral address, March 4, 1933 in Washington, DC, where President Roosevelt said:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stem performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action.

This speech is best known for the line, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

When quoted, the quoters stop here.

But look at the rest of the line …

–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Let’s look at this again.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself–

Nameless,

Unreasoning,

Unjustified terror

Which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Mr. Shakespeare put it:

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

I enjoyed watching the election returns last night.

Oh, decidedly that, enjoyed, I was overjoyed almost to the point of tears that this country seems to asserted itself and said, here the people rule.

Let’s go forward.

Let’s go forward without fear.

I do think that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and bold!

The time to speak the truth.

The whole truth.

Frankly and bold!

(WHAT A NOVELTY!)

Let’s go forward.

Let’s go forward with Truth.

Let’s go forward with Truth, frankly and bold!

SO much to do!

For right now, forgive me, my heart is in clouds and I do feel like its morning again for this Country.

the importance of
accurate speech, those virtues
of communication

Ballot:

Italian balla, ball. Secret voting in early days was done by dropping small balls in an urn or a box. Our present voting-machines have no resemblance to a ball at all, but the name sticks. Bullet is from the French form of ball, boule. Bullets and ballots are therefore the same — but not in a democracy, heaven be praised. The Venetians used bullets for drawing lots. To “blackball” was to drop in a ball of black, indicating a vote against a candidate.

From In a word by Margaret S. Ernst, illustrated by James Thurber (Harper & Row: New York, 1939).

In a preface to a re-release of In a Word in the early 1960’s, Mr. Thurber wrote:

The primary purpose of this compendium is to entertain, to fascinate, even to astonish word lovers, but it is my personal prayer that it will also serve to impress them with the importance of accurate speech, careful writing, and true meaning in a period of the world’s history when those virtues of communication are becoming more and more essential to the security, such as it is, of Man on earth.

In the original introduction, Ms. Ernst wrote:

We use words in a manner that fits contemporary thought and function. But back of almost every twentieth century accepted meaning is an earlier sense: more full of activity, less metaphoric, a literal picture of life in early Rome or Athens or in England, land of the Angles. When a Roman insulted someone, he leaped on him (or her) physically (Latin in, on; salire, leap or jump).

Neither here nor there, but Mr. Thurber also wrote:

The drawings that accompany some of these words are among the last that I was able to do in pen and ink before my sight began to dim in 1940. The illustration for ‘Candidate’ was presented, twenty years ago, to Franklin Delano Roosevelt by his great friend, Morris Ernst, without, I am glad to say, disturbing their friendship in any way whatever. What became of that drawing I do not know, but what becomes of my drawings is, thank God, not one of the problems of our time, here or abroad.

Of course I selected the drawing titled Ballot for election day and I lucked out with Mr. Thurber’s warning about the “… importance of accurate speech, careful writing, and true meaning in a period of the world’s history when those virtues of communication are becoming more and more essential to the security, such as it is, of Man on earth.“

Oh how I could go on about the importance of accurate speech, careful writing, and true meaning in a period of the world’s history when those virtues of communication are becoming more and more essential to the security, such as it is, of Man on earth and how it relates to that man currently in office but I could spend all day on that and I don’t have all day.

For 20 years I worked in news and election day and getting accurate results online was the challenge of the day.

My first online election was Bush / Gore in the fall of 2000.

I cannot even guess at how many elections I worked after that until I was told that my services were no longer needed in 2020.

I worked with some great people covering some great issues.

And not once … NOT ONCE … was there ever a story line that asked, would one side or the other not accept the results of the election.

Democracy is about ballots, not bullets.

It takes both sides to follow the rules to work.

In dealing with the rules, the importance of accurate speech, careful writing, and true meaning in a period of the world’s history when those virtues of communication are becoming more and more essential to the security, such as it is, of Man on earth.

In the words of Bette Davis, “Hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

For more Thurber drawings, see For Muggs and Rex