3.5.2021 – often factitious

often factitious
objectivity lends a
cold mendacity

In the Guardian this morning, quoted Joan Didion, writing:

“… Joan Didion makes a case against newspapers. Too often, she argues, their reporting style rests on “a quite factitious ‘ objectivity’”, which “lends the entire venture a mendacity” by failing to make explicit the writer’s own particular set of influences and biases. Didion praises instead magazines that cultivate a personal voice, and which aim to impart character and atmosphere rather than straightforward information: “They assume that the reader is a friend, that he is disturbed about something, and that he will understand if they talk to him straight; this assumption of a shared language and a common ethic lends their reports a considerable cogency of style.” Often, she concludes, the real story is “the story not in the newspaper”.

I like the sentence “a quite factitious ‘ objectivity’”, which “lends the entire venture a mendacity”.

I wasn’t sure what Ms. Didion meant but I was sure it wasn’t a good thing.

Using the online dictionary I came up with, “artificially created equal treatment of all rivals or fairness develops an untruthfulness.”

It was during the FAB FIVE era of Michigan Basketball that Coach Steve Fisher said, “Everyone will be treated fairly but not everyone will be treated the same.”

If I was there I would tell him that a quite factitious objectivity lends the entire venture a mendacity.

Of course I mean that had I read this back then and had I been there back then, I would had said this.

But I wasn’t reading Joan Didion back then.

Nor was I hanging out with the Michigan Basketball team.

On such hinges the fate of history swings back and forth.

I was going to say that had I been there at the Trump White House, I could have said this but then I thought it over and I think I could say this to any White House.

Maybe to paraphrase Mr. Lincoln, be truthful, be fair, whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference is no longer true and no longer fair.

Reminds of when Jim Harrison wrote that over 10 million laws have been passed trying to enforce the 10 commandments.

Get along?

Why can’t we do the right thing?

Cold mendacity?

Had to make it fit somehow into a haiku.

2.22.21 – slight shades of difference

slight shades of difference
religion, manners, habits
triumphed together

For George Washington’s Birthday, this was taken from General Washington’s 32 page farewell address to the nation written in 1796.

Famous for his warning against Foreign entanglements saying, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake,” the General was also aware of the problems of party and states and government by party and by states.

The General said this:

“Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.”

Citizens, by birth or choice,

of a common country,

that country has a right to concentrate your affections.

The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism.

I recently ran across an essay that took the form of an email from a grand father to a grand son trying to explain the what this country was in danger of losing.

Have to point this essay appeared in the New Yorker on April 6, 2020 (Love Letter by George Sanders)

“… disrupt something so noble, so time tested and seemingly strong that had been with us literally everyday of our lives. We had taken a profound gift for granted. We did not know the gift was a fluke, a chimera, a wonderful accident of consensus and mutual understanding.”

The General understood this.

He even warned us saying:

“Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.

… you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity;

watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety;

discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned;

and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”

Happy Birthday General.

We miss you very much and wish you all the best.

As a postscript and a new citizen of the State of South Carolina I have to point out this little factoid.

The image I used today is from a portrait of

The image I used today is from a portrait of George Washington as Colonel in the Virginia Regiment, Charles Willson Peale, in 1772.

Notice around his neck is a small metal ‘gorget’ that was worn by officers of the era as a symbol of military rank.

The shape of the gorget was adapted as the insignia or badge of the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Regiments that were formed to protect Charleston from a certain British invasion in 1775.

These two regiments manned Fort Sullivan in Charleston Harbor that held off an attack of Royal Navy, June 28, 1776.

Fort Sullivan was constructed of palmetto trees.

The gorget and the palmetto tree are the symbols on the flag of State of South Carolina.

Sometime after the flag was designed a state functionary changed it a bit by tilting the gorget which makes folks think it is a crescent moon.

It is not the moon but the gorget badge of the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Regiments.

Just thought I would pass that along.

2.12.2021 – liberty, not for

liberty, not for
this country alone but to
the world, for all time

As it is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday I thought I take some words for one of his speeches.

This is from an address Mr. Lincoln made at Independence Hall.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
February 22, 1861

Mr. Cuyler:

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. I can say in return, Sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world, if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say, in advance, that there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced upon the Government, and then it will be compelled to act in self-defence.

My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed it was merely to do something toward raising the flag. I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. (Cries of “No, no”) I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.

The page with the txt of the speech states: On Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural journey to Washington as president-elect, he stopped in Philadelphia at the site where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. One of the most famous statements in the speech was, “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” This hall also was the place where Lincoln’s body lay in state after his assassination in 1865, one of many stops his funeral train made before he was laid to rest in Springfield, Illinois.

2.7.2021 – American Satire

American Satire
American Reality
Where does one stop, start?

In answer to the question, in a recent interview, “Do you consider yourself a satirist,?”, satirist Fran Lebowitz said, “In a way, yes, but, American reality has been so extreme of late that satire is almost impossible. Anything you could possible imagine actually happens. It would stump Jonathan Swift.”

It was Jonathon Swift who wrote, “Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”

I have to admit I am not sure what this all means.

I think it boils down to, you can’t make this stuff up.

How did a national response to a global pandemic become a political statement based on wearing or not wearing a mask?

Ms. Lebowitz also said in this same interview:

“When I was young there was a very strict idea of the boundary between the public and the private life.

So, things that you might do in the privacy of your bedroom, you wouldn’t do on 12th St.

That seems to have disappeared entirely and it is not just the young; it’s true even of people my age, who were brought up in a certain way and then forgot about it.

It is surprising to me just how unconscious people are of themselves in public, considering how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time”

Is that the answer to the question?

Consider how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time.

I like Ms. Leibowitz a lot.

Just when you think she has gone off into the happy world of hyperbole and complains that New York City spent $40 million dollars researching how to and then putting lawn chairs in Times Square, you find out she was telling the truth.

When I consider how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time, I am reminded of an essay on the future by one of my favorite writers, Michigan’s Own, Bruce Catton.

Mr. Catton wrote, “The dismaying world we confront was given its vast intricacy and its perilous speed by human beings. The one basic resource we have always had to rely on is the innate intelligence, energy and good will of the human race. It is facing an enormous challenge, but then it always has; and it meets each one only to confront another. If now we give way to the gloom of the apostles of catastrophe we are of course in the deepest sort of trouble. The old reliance is at our service. It can bear us up if we put out full weight on it.”

This is where that comment of Ms. Leibowtiz comes in to play.

American reality has been so extreme of late that satire is almost impossible.

Anything you could possible imagine actually happens.

If we have to rely on the innate intelligence, energy and good will of the human race while at the sane time we consider how much more acceptable it has become to think about yourself all the time I think we are of course in the deepest sort of trouble.

Not something I would dare put my weight on at this time.

1.30.2021 – shovel them under

shovel them under
let me work, two years, ten years
ask where are we now?

Adapted from Carl Sandburg’s poem, Grass.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Frustrated at the lack of change when I thought everything had changed.

Then I realize it has only been a couple of weeks.

This is going to take time.

But I do believe that after two years or ten years, passengers ask what place WAS this.

As Mr. Willy Wonka said, “Oh, you can’t get out backwards. You’ve got to go forwards to go back, better press on.”