weren’t satisfied with
having money unless there
were many who didn’t

Oddly, it wasn’t the poverty that ground against the sensibilities so hard that depressed me the most but the attitude of many of the more fortunate who weren’t satisfied with having money unless there were many who didn’t have it.

Even quasi-religious people liked to quote Jesus as saying, “The poor you have with you always,” neglecting to add that he didn’t say to sit on your ass and don’t do anything about it.

The thought that my country accepts the idea that a quarter of its citizens are destined to be social mutants peels my nerves.

Our compassion quotient has seemed to lower a bit more every year of my adult life.

I never much minded when my colleagues would tease me for being a “bleeding heart” because if your heart doesn’t bleed you’re dead, and you’ve become just another greedy little shit factory on life’s way.

From True North by Jim Harrison (New York, Grove Press, 2004).

Yes of late I have been drawing a lot of inspiration from Mr. Harrison and The Road Home of late.

You can guess that I am re-reading it again and wonder if the power of some of Mr. Harrison’s writing would have been lessened had he left some of the rawness out of it.

But this is like trying to draw life lessons from watching the Soprano’s and wishing they could have dropping the violence.

The life frustrations of Tony in his sessions with the psychiatrist (“If my calling is so important, PICK UP THE PHONE”) I guess need the contrast with the miserable life of a mobster.

But I digress.

Our compassion quotient has seemed to lower a bit more every year of my adult life.

I could start with the compassion quotient but you could add almost any other aspect of life and it has seemed to lower a bit more every year.

It seems that I have read stories that for the first time, the next generation of Americans are looking at a worse world then the previous generation had.

We could start with that current man in the oval office and go down hill from there.

I read books and poems about a filled with bird song and all I have around my house is the caw caw of crows.

I read books filled with exclamations of wonder and beauty over the salt sea breeze and where I live on the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina, what you get is the pluff mud of the salt march which smells of dirty diapers.

Sports are money pits with nothing to do about sports.

I am tired of raging against the machine.

There is just too much money, dead money, money that isn’t doing anything but sitting in banks in account and doing nothing.

I don’t like to go to Woody Allen but in Annie Hall, the artist (Max von Sydow) says:

Money, money, money! If Jesus came back, and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.

a notorious
money pot, they got in, they ..
got it and got out

The Cook County Sheriff’s Department was a notorious money pot.

The sheriff’s police were supposed to patrol the roads and residential areas in the sizable unincorporated parts of the suburbs and were empowered to enter any town if local police weren’t doing their job.

They spent most of their time, however, shaking down motorists and making collections at suburban bars and brothels.

Since a sheriff couldn’t succeed himself, most of them got in, got it, and got out.

Few left without being the subject of scandal.

From Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko (New York; New American Library, 1971).

My favorite Daley story?

Daley is in a boat that is sinking with 2 other guys and there is one life jacket. Daley tells them they will have to vote to see who gets the life jacket and Daley wins 7 to 2.

We grew up with the stories about Mayor Daley and Chicago but it was all kind of joke, because it was Chicago.

It was that type of place and time.

Is it any wonder that the Mayor Daley’s Chicago came to mind when I read the NYT Opinion Piece by Noah Shachtman, Trump Just Took Us Somewhere the Country Has Never Been Before.

Especially the part where Mr. Shactman writes:

This week’s announcement of a $1.8 billion government slush fund — ostensibly for victims of what Mr. Trump has called the Justice Department’s “weaponization,” but almost certainly destined for his allies — guarantees it. The president may wish to be considered in the same class as Napoleon or Alexander the Great, but he is in danger of turning himself into the next Mobutu Sese Seko or Mohamed Suharto: a kleptocrat remembered not for his ideas, not for his power, but for his greed.

Mr. Trump has devoted a large portion of his second term to enriching himself and his family with foreign and private funds: the crypto deals, the rapid-fire stock trades, the Boeing 747 he accepted as a gift from Qatar. But until recently, there was no evidence that his most brazen capers involved taking actively, directly from you and me. That changed when he, two of his sons, and the Trump family business sued the U.S. government for $10 billion over the leak of their tax returns.

In effect, Mr. Trump, the private citizen, was suing President Trump, the head of the executive branch. He didn’t bother to pretend it made sense: “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he quipped to reporters. Surprise, surprise, that settlement was really sweet. The 10-figure “anti-weaponization fund” is a new low: Mr. Trump plunging his bruised hands into public accounts and scooping out money.

“Just in terms of sheer dollars, this is the most corrupt action in American history,” says Brendan Ballou, a former Justice Department special counsel. He’s representing a pair of police officers injured during the Capitol riots who are suing in federal court to stop the fund. “This may be the most infamous thing that Donald Trump does beyond Jan. 6, 2021.”

But until recently, there was no evidence that his most brazen capers involved taking actively, directly from you and me.

The 10-figure “anti-weaponization fund” is a new low.

Just in terms of sheer dollars, this is the most corrupt action in American history.

Until today I thought that that current man in office WANTED to be President.

He wanted that role and all the trappings that come with it.

It just now dawned on me that the office was incidental to his plans.

When there is that much money involved, the political process to become president is just the means to achieve the end goal.

The Republican party seems to have admitted this as Congressman Blake Moore from Utah said at a House Republican leadership press conference, Our Republican priority will always be to be putting government ahead of Americans.

There was never any plans to govern though.

There was never any plans to achieve anything.

The plan is get in.

Get it.

Get out.

I was about to write, Mayor Daley would be proud.

Deep down, even Mayor Daley would be sickened by this new low.

Just don’t expect that lower isn’t coming.

error thinking that
those who cause great tragedies
share in the feelings

There is no error more common than that of thinking that those who are the causes or occasions of great tragedies share in the feelings suitable to the tragic mood: no error more fatal than expecting it of them.

From De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde (Methuen & Co.: London, 1913).

President Donald Trump has said that Americans’ economic pain is not his concern when it comes to the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran.

When asked at the White House on Tuesday if Americans’ financial situations were motivating him to strike a deal with Iran, Trump said, “Not even a little bit.” (Time Magazine, May 13, 2026).

Mr. Wilde closes his essay with this:

All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death;

And so, here we are.