12.9.2024 – all men kill the thing

all men kill the thing
they hate, too, unless, of course,
it … it kills them first

The Crow and the Scarecrow

Once upon a farm an armada of crows descended like the wolf on the fold. They were after the seeds in the garden and the corn in the field. The crows posted sentinels, who warned them of the approach of the farmer, and they even had an undercover crow or two who mingled with the chickens in the barnyard and the pigeons on the roof, and found out the farmer’s plans in advance. Thus they were able to raid the garden and the field when he was away, and they stayed hidden when he was at home. The farmer decided to build a scarecrow so terrifying it would scare the hateful crows to death when they got a good look at it. But the scarecrow, for all the work the farmer put in on it, didn’t frighten even the youngest and most fluttery female. The marauders knew that the scarecrow was a suit of old clothes stuffed with straw and that what it held in its wooden hand was not a rifle but only a curtain rod.

As more and more corn and more and more seeds disappeared, the farmer became more and more eager for vengeance. One night, he made himself up to look like a scarecrow and in the dark, for it was a moonless night, his son helped him to take the place of the scarecrow. This time, however, the hand that held the gun was not made of wood and the gun was not an unloaded curtain rod, but a double-barrelled 12-gauge Winchester.

Dawn broke that morning with a sound like a thousand tin pans falling. This was the rebel yell of the crows coming down on field and garden like Jeb Stuart’s cavalry. Now one of the young crows who had been out all night, drinking corn instead of eating it, suddenly went into a tailspin, plunged into a bucket of red paint that was standing near the barn, and burst into flames.

The farmer was just about to blaze away at the squadron of crows with both barrels when the one that was on fire headed straight for him. The sight of a red crow, dripping what seemed to be blood, and flaring like a Halloween torch, gave the living scarecrow such a shock that he dropped dead in one beat less than the tick of a watch (which is the way we all want to go, mutatis, it need scarcely be said, mutandis).

The next Sunday the parson preached a disconsolate sermon, denouncing drink, carryings on, adult delinquency, front page marriages, golf on Sunday, adultery, careless handling of firearms, and cruelty to our feathered friends. After the sermon, the dead farmer’s wife explained to the preacher what had really happened, but he only shook his head and murmured skeptically, “Confused indeed would be the time in which the crow scares the scarecrow and becomes the scarescarecrow.”

MORAL: All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.

Published in Further Fables for Our Time by James Thurber Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London, 1956.

Denouncing drink, carryings on, adult delinquency, front page marriages, golf on Sunday, adultery, careless handling of firearms, and cruelty to our feathered friends.

There used to be a time when conduct might be called into question.

Confused indeed would be the time in which the crow scares the scarecrow and becomes the scarescarecrow.

11.2.2024 – he knew no jury

he knew no jury
darken honest man’s future
with unjust verdict

When the charge of election bribery was brought against an Illinois senator, he replied, “I read the Bible and believe it from cover to cover”

When his accusers specified five hundred dollars of corruption money was paid in a St Louis hotel bathroom, his friends answered, “He is faithful to his wife and always kind to his children”

When he was ousted from the national senate and the doors of his bank were closed by government receivers and a grand jury indicted him, he took the vows of an old established church

When a jury acquitted him of guilt as a bank wrecker, following the testimony of prominent citizens that he was an honest man, he issued a statement to the public for the newspapers, proclaiming he knew beforehand no jury would darken the future of an honest man with an unjust verdict

Implications by as printed in Good morning, America, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1928.

Mr. Sandburg titled this poem, Implications.

The online Oxford Dictionary defines implications as “the conclusion that can be drawn from something although it is not explicitly stated.”

Mr. Sandburg published his poem, Implications, back in 1928.

I am startled not by the implications, the laundry list of wrongs or implied wrongs, that has been going on forever.

But that the Senator in question was backed and continued to be backed, regardless or in spite of evidence to the contrary, by ‘prominent citizens‘ and the Senator’s self assurance in his knowledge beforehand that the jury would be swayed by the testimony of the ‘prominent citizens.’

You could bet cash money this poem had been written yesterday, not 100 years ago.

Who needs social media?

Who needs influencers?

PS: 3 days out of the last 4, I have turned to Mr. Sandburg. If he were alive today, he wouldn’t stop throwing up.

10.31.2024 – heard the sound of waves

heard the sound of waves
someone heard them years ago
as will years from now

Driving to work in the dark again, I park and get out of the car for the short walk to the office.

It is quiet, very quiet, even the birds are silent in the pre-dawn.

There is just of a low rumble sound of the surf to remind me that I am standing about a half mile from the Atlantic Coast.

Doing the math and staying with the median of 2800 miles for the width of the United States, the distance between me and the ocean is 0.0178571429% of the median width of the country.

The tide is coming and will reach a peak around 8 a.m. and cycle through to the day’s 2nd high tide around 8 p.m. tonight.

Happens twice every day.

Has happened twice every day since all this started and will continue twice a day for as long as it us supposed to.

Someone years ago, decades ago, centuries ago, could have stood here and heard the waves and watched the tide come in and go out.

Someone years from now, decades from now, centuries from now, might stand here and hear the waves and watch the tide come in and go out.

As Mr. Lincoln said one the field at Gettysburg, “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here.”

I used to think that was pretty cool.

Back in the day when America dreamed big dreams for all people.

Back in the day when America stood up for dreaming big dreams for all people.

Back in the day when America was recognized for dreaming big dreams for all people.

Today?

Today, I am reminded of something else Mr. Lincoln.

“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.

We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.“

Years from now, about all I count on is that the tide will come in and go out and someone might be here to see it and hear the waves.

Any marks we may have made will all be washed away.

And we just might thank God that it is.

10.30.2024 – money buys everything

money buys everything
‘cept love, personality,
freedom, or peace

Money is power so said one
Money is a cushion so said another
Money is the root of evil so said still another
Money means freedom so runs an old saying
And money is all of these – and more
Money pays for whatever you want — if you have the money
Money buys food, clothes, houses, land, guns, jewels, men, women, time to be lazy and listen to music
Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace

Carl Sandburg in The People, Yes as published in the Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1957.

Such cheek on my part to adapt Carl Sandburg and change around his words but there it is.

When Mr. Sandburg died in the summer of 1967, the office of President Lyndon Johnson issued this statement in his name.

THE ROAD has come to an end for Carl Sandburg, my friend

Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America. We knew and cherished him as the bard of democracy, the echo of the people, our conscience, and chronicler of truth and beauty and purpose.

Carl Sandburg needs no epitaph. It is written for all time in the fields, the cities, the face and heart of the land he loved and the people he celebrated and inspired.

With the world, we mourn his passing. It is our special pride and fortune as Americans that we will always hear Carl Sandburg’s voice within ourselves. For he gave us the truest and most enduring vision of our own greatness.

At a memorial service for Mr. Sandburg held in front of the Lincoln Memorial later that fall of 1967, President Johnson closed his remarks with:

He knew that always in America “the strong men keep coming on.”

I will miss him; we will all miss him. There will not be one like him again.

But that line of Mr. Johnson’s, “For he gave us the truest and most enduring vision of our own greatness.“

And I read … Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace.

I will miss him; we will all miss him. There will not be one like him again.

10.27.2024 – had fallen asleep

had fallen asleep
year ago and woke up today,
would have missed little

Adapted from the opening paragraphs in the New York Times Opinion Piece, The Election Is Happening Too Soon by David Brooks.

Mr. Brooks wrote:

I had hoped this election would be a moment of national renewal. I had hoped that the Democrats could decisively defeat MAGA populism and send us down a new national path.

That’s clearly not going to happen. No matter who wins this election, it will be close, and this is still going to be an evenly and bitterly divided nation.

In retrospect, I think I was expecting too much of politics. When certain sociological and cultural realities are locked in, there is not much politicians can do to redirect events. The two parties and their associated political committees have spent billions this year, and nothing has altered the race. The polls are just where they were at the start. If you had fallen asleep a year ago and woke up today, you would have missed little of consequence, except that it’s Kamala Harris leading the blue 50 percent of the country now and not Joe Biden.

It’s clearer to me now that most of the time politicians are not master navigators leading us toward a new future. They are more like surfers who ride the waves created by people further down in the core society.

When I was in college and studying the history of the United States, a theme pounded into my head by one of my favorite Professors was that the number one job of the President was to ‘educate the people’.

This Professor felt that with the correct information, the people would understand and support the President’s goals and the current administration’s efforts to reach those goals.

Another way to put, was that the President’s role was to provide leadership.

What a concept.

Leadership.

Mr. Brooks writes, “Politicians, especially when running for office, are professional opportunists, trying to please voting blocs. They are rarely visionaries.”

I like that.

Professional Opportunists.

Even when its seems both parties are just a bunch of lemmings running in opposite directions and the reason there are running in that opposite direction is mostly because it IS the opposite direction, with both sides heading for the cliff, the candidates see which way the crowds are moving, get in front of their group and yell, ‘Follow Me (to the cliff’s edge).’

When certain sociological and cultural realities are locked in, there is not much politicians can do to redirect events.

The two parties and their associated political committees have spent billions this year, and nothing has altered the race.

The polls are just where they were at the start.

And this is how we choose our leaders.

It sure doesn’t seem to be because of any leadership qualities on where we might, as a country, be going.

As Mr. Thurber reminds in his Fable, The Wolf who Went Places, “Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.”