red scary moment
all yesterdays lighted fools
way to dusty death

McCarthyism been on my mind of late.

Groundless accusations, unjust charges along with statements having no basis in truth.

Can’t imagine why I was thinking about that era.

A thought came to me that brought me up sharp.

One of those moments when you stop and look over the edge of the cliff.

I had said to myself, what if Joe McCarthy had social media.

What if the Red Scare had facebook.

It is bizarre for me to remember that the Congress of the United States authorized and created an investigative committee named HUAC.

If you don’t remember it stood for House Un-American Activities Committee.

It is even odder when I remember that it was formed in 1938, 12 years before Joe McCarthy came along.

House Un-American Activities Committee.

Un-American.

And this in the era when all the news was in Newspapers.

And when Tail-Gunner Joe came along in 1950 with his list of 300, 786, 938 or was it 1,100 names (Joe couldn’t keep track either) of ‘known communists in the State Department’, HUAC was all set and waiting for him.

Had twitter and facebook been around during the Red Scare maybe this country would have come to an end.

But cooler heads, in the end, prevailed.

I say that because I can get feeling that way now.

I say that because the feelings in play across the nation look to be in place for along time and I cannot imagine where the cooler heads will come from, let alone, prevail.

But I think of other things.

I remember that Mr. Hitler came to power in 1932 and proclaimed a new Germany that would last 1,000 years.

In his novel on the era, The Winds of War, Herman Wouk has his hero, Pug Henry, watching the German army in action and thinking that the 1,000 Reich looked like a good bet to make it.

Then I remember the 1936 Olympics.

The Berlin Olympics.

The Olympics that came up with the Olympic Torch and Olympic Flame.

I remember watching a documentary on the track star Jesse Owens, who won 4 gold medals at the Berlin Olympics.

Mr. Owens got his shot at the 4th medal as part of the 400 Meter Men’s Relay team because the USA Olympic team quietly removed another member who was Jewish but I digress.

There was some controversy that Mr. Hitler did not shake hands with Mr. Owens or congratulate him on his medals.

At the end of the documentary, Mr. Owens stood at the entrance of the Olympic Stadium that stands to this day in the suburbs of Berlin.

As I remember it, Mr. Owen’s talked about Mr. Hitler and said something along the lines of, well, I am here now and he is not.

That 1,000 years of Hitler’s country lasted about 13.

In no way do I mean to say that the current political climate is reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany.

In no way can the current political farce of masks and vaccines and garden parties compare in any way to Hitler’s Germany.

Hitler’s Germany did not last.

Cooler heads did prevail.

In the USA, people realized that the House Un-American Activities Committee was Un American.

Maybe they even realized that the term Un American was as dumb as it sounded.

Cooler heads did prevail.

I guess I don’t need to be too worried today.

Tomorrow?

Who said it better than Big Bill?

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.

(Macbeth, Act V, Scene V)

pathological
narcissism when in office
petty in extreme

Adapted from the line “Once addicted, the pathologically narcissistic politician can become petty in the extreme, taking every slight as a deep personal insult.” in the article, “Where egos dare: Manchin and Sinema show how Senate spotlight corrupts” by Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, and professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

I liked the article as much for what it said as for the word play of the 1967 book, “Where Eagles Dare” by Alistair MacLean.

I have read that the book was supposed to be titled “Castle of Eagles” but that a Hollywood producer convinced MacLean to change the title to “Where Eagles Dare” from the line “The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch” from Act I, Scene III in William Shakespeare’s Richard III.

But I bet you a dollar that who ever came up with the title for Reich’s article, was thinking of the movie with the same title that starred Richard Burton and a very young Clint Eastwood.

But this is the trick to the question.

MacLean was contacted by this Hollywood Producer to write an original story directly for the screen.

In this case of chicken-egg, book-movie, it was the MOVIE that came first.

According to online sources [sic], the producer told MacLean that he wanted, “a team of five or six guys on a mission in the Second World War, facing enormous obstacles. I want a mystery. I want a sweaty, exciting adventure movie.’ That’s all I told him, just that.”

I am not sure if there is a specific word or genre’ for this type of book, but I have always regarded it with a bit of awe as it takes place in realtime.

What I mean by that is that the entire book takes place within the time of about 12 hours.

12 hours to land in Germany, get inside a heavily guarded German HQ that is located in a castle on top of mountain accessible only by cable car, free a captured allied spy, capture the top three German spies and get the spies to write out a list of all the German spies in Britain, un-mask the top traitor in the British high command and get away.

A grand case of the suspension of disbelief.

If you can watch the movie and accept that all the Germans speak English, its a small step to accept all the rest.

Also a grand example of my inability to stay on topic and to fall into a digression that has no bearing on the haiku.

Or does it?

The haiku is about narcissism in politics.

The article I link to writes in the voice of an insider who has seen many great efforts brought to unexpected ends because, “Again and again, I’ve watched worthy legislation sink because particular senators didn’t feel they were getting enough credit, or enough personal attention from a president, or insufficient press attention, or unwanted press attention, or that another senator (sometimes from the same party) was getting too much attention.”

I am reminded of a story told by then Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil.

The Speaker was elected to the House seat vacated by JFK in 1952 and was re-elected 12 times.

In politics, or at least in what I used to know as politics, running for Congress in Boston in the District that at one time was represented by John F. Kennedy, like Gerald R. Ford’s district in Michigan, was known as a ‘safe seat.’

Most likely you will be reelected.

Re-elected with very little effort.

My Dad told me how Gerald Ford would come back to West Michigan every couple of months, rent an RV and drive around the district and park in a lot and put up a sign that said “MEET YOUR CONGRESSMAN – NO WAITNG,” and then go back to Washington and forget about Grand Rapids.

The Speaker loved to tell this story about seeing some polling data from his district.

Mr. O’Neil noticed that a neighbor of his in his district, an older lady, someone who had voted the democratic ticket forever, someone that he knew, had indicated that in the last election she had NOT voted for the Speaker.

The next time he was in Boston, the Speaker sought her out and asked what happened?

Why had she not voted for him?

The lady looked at the Speaker and said in a very tired voice, a voice the Speaker never forgot, “Tip,” she said, “Sometimes folks just want to be asked.”

I bring this to up to ponder what if politicians, the House, the Senate, all of them together, somehow asked, on a regular basis, not just every two years, what we wanted.

Mr. Reich writes, “The Senate is not the world’s greatest deliberative body but it is the world’s greatest stew of egos battling for attention.

Every senator believes he or she has what it takes to be president.

Most believe they’re far more competent than whoever occupies the Oval Office.

Out of a 100 Senators, only a handful are chosen for interviews on the Sunday talk shows and very few get a realistic shot at the presidency.

The result is intense competition for attention.“

I would like to see an intense competition for our attention.

To get there, all it takes is a grand suspension of disbelief.

Then I thought again about the line, The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

Written by Big Bill back in 1592.

Written by Big Bill back in 1592 about a King that had died in 1485.

A time when, The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

And again I realize, I guess, that this world and all that is going has been done before.

Like is says in scripture, “there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 KJV)

PS: Mr. Reich’s paragraph about Lindsey Graham made me laugh out loud. Especially now that Mr. Graham is ‘MY’ Senator.

Reich wrote:

Some senators get so whacky in the national spotlight that they can’t function without it. Trump had that effect on Republicans. Before Trump, Lindsey Graham was almost a normal human being. Then Trump directed a huge amp of national attention Graham’s way, transmogrifying the senator into a bizarro creature who’d say anything Trump wanted to keep the attention coming.

things fall apart
norns, the weavers of fate, with
with sense of humor

Things fall apart.

The phrase is used as re-occurring punctuation in the online news story, Even under the mask, Johnson looked like someone who knew the game was up.

Things fall apart.

It is a story about how the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is trying to get out from under the story that he went to party that no told him was actually a party.

The Prime Minister has initiated Operation Save Big Dog to try and keep his job.

The same page of News also had the headlines, Which is more dysfunctional – the US or the UK? and Is midnight upon us? Doomsday Clock panel to set risk of global catastrophe and America must take steps now to avoid a slide into authoritarianism.

There was a time in World History when the President of the United States wrote to the Prime Minister of England, “It is fun to be in the same decade with you.”

That was Franklin Roosevelt writing to Winston Churchill.

That those two came together at the same time and, well, that they didn’t come together now gets me to thinking about the Norns.

According to Norse Mythology, you know, the Vikings, at the center of the cosmos were three sisters called the Norns who spun or weave the destiny of the world.

There is little agreement on what they are doing, spinning a long string or weaving a cloth, but whatever they are doing, they are responsible for what happens to ever one every where.

Fate.

One writer I read writes that the Norns sit a big loom, weaving a tapestry.

If you have ever seen one of these looms, its a big frame with that separates every other north-south thread in a fabric and a shuttle is slid back and forth with east-west material and then with a motion the north-south threads are switched up and down to create a weave.

According to this writer, just when you have fate figured out, bazoom, the norns slide that shuttle back the other way or, bazoom, they switch the position of the threads or, bazoom, they use a batten to shove the weave tighter.

Whatever they do, it changes the direction anyone thinks there fate is going.

Along with this random action, the norns also select the type of thread, the colors and the patterns so to that extent their choices impact fate on earth.

I don’t believe any of this of course but it is fun to speculate and to wonder sometimes what those crazy Norns were thinking.

For the most part, according to Wikipedia, the Norns could be malevolent or benevolent: the former causing tragic events in the world while the latter were kind and protective.

Reading the newspaper today I realize that the Norns also have sense of humor.