Month: November 2020

11.4.2020 – can I not get up?

can I not get up?
stay here under the covers
wake when it’s over

All I really wanted was decision.

Left or right,

Wrong or right.

I just wanted this long national nightmare to be over.

I often think that all things considered the Titanic’s collision with the ice berg was a feat of navigation.

What were the odds of a ship leaving England and traveling west at various speeds and courses could some how have hit, DEAD CENTER, a drifting iceberg in the middle of an ocean.

No one would have taken the bet.

Had the plan been for the Titanic to hit the iceberg, I am certain they would have missed.

Here is the point.

Hundreds of millions of voters.

Countless variables and datasets on how, where, when and why people will vote.

And this country comes down to a statistical tie?

A plus – minus within the range of a RANDOM result?

Boggles the mind.

Or does it?

John Adams of Founding Fathers fame once commented on how Americans felt about the French Revolution.

Mr. Adams famously said something along the lines of, “1/3 of Americans were pro French, 1/3 were pro revolution and 1/3 , well, they didn’t give a damn.”

Still it all seems to be coming down to Michigan.

Back in 1918 one of the big concerns was would the United States join the League of Nations.

It was THE GOAL of the Woodrow Wilson 2nd term.

The treaty had been signed but needed to be approved by the Republican Senate that was international intervention.

Prior to the election the Democrats held control 53 to 43 as there were just 96 Senators back then.

The Republicans made a big push to win the mid year elections.

The had to have a majority of 1 as a tie would let Vice President Thomas R. Marshall break the tie in favor of President Wilson.

In Michigan, Henry Ford ran as Candidate for Senate.

Mr. Ford won the Democratic primary.

Mr. Ford also entered the Republican primary which was allowed back then.

Had he won both primaries, he would be declared the winner.

Mr. Ford lost the primary to Truman Newberry, 212,000 to 220,000 votes.

Mr. Ford then lost the general election to Mr. Newberry.

Counting Mr. Newberry, the Republican’s took control of the Senate by one seat, 49 to 47.

Remember a tie was a loss.

As Wikipedia says, “The change in control meant that the Republicans could deny entry of the United States into the League of Nations. American participation in this new international institution was the centerpiece of Wilson’s post-war foreign policy.”

8,000 Michigan voters.

All I wanted was a clear winner.

All I wanted was no more haggling.

All I wanted was some relief from all this.

All I want now is to stay in bed.

To stay in bed, under the covers.

It is warm there.

It seems to be safe there.

They say no one is an island but right now I am out on an Island.

Under the covers would be just one step further in the right direction today.

11.3.2020 – There is ruin, decay

There is ruin, decay
winds blow bleak, all gone away
nothing more to say

Adapted from The House on the Hill by Edwin Arlington Robinson

They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.

Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray
Around the sunken sill?
They are all gone away,

And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

I was attracted to this poem for today, election day 2020, as finally, there is nothing more to say.

I have always felt that one of the most forlorn sights is a Halloween Pumpkin on November 1st.

How much more so election signs all across everywhere the day after an election.

All those candidates, they are all gone away.

I looked up the poem to make sure I got the poet’s first name correct and I learned that this poem:

‘The House on the Hill’ by Edward Arlington Robinson is a six stanza villanelle that is divided into sets of three lines, known as tercets, and then one final set of four lines, or quatrain. The lines follow a very simple rhyme scheme of ABA, with the traditional repetition one can expect from a villanelle. The first and third lines of the first stanza is repeated, alternatively, in the next five.

It isn’t just a poem but a a six stanza villanelle!

WOW.

Villanelle.

Never ran across that term before.

Sounds much harder than a haiku but explains why I had trouble getting a seven syllable line out of it when all the lines are six syllables.

The page I learned this on also said, in the way of analysis:

It is meant to be a symbol for the speaker’s past and it’s decay a representative of how he’s losing contact with his own past acquaintances and experiences.

On election day 2020, I hope we aren’t losing contact with our past.

I hope it isn’t all gone away.

Bleak and shrill.

No good or ill.

And I hope it is not ruin and decay.

But we all have to wait.

There is nothing more to say.