7.25.2020 – the path most taken

the path most taken
Titanic mentality
the end doesn’t change

It seems to me that in the old show, F Troop, a comedy about the good old days in the US Cavalry in the post Civil War West, there was this ongoing gag.

One of the Native American characters was always reading a book on the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

At some point some one would say, “Are you reading that again?”

And the character would answer, “I like how it ends.”

Last night I was watching TV and low and behold a lady from where I live in Gwinnett County was on CNN.

She was telling the CNN Anchor why she and other parents wanted the schools here in Gwinnett, the nations 4th or 5th largest school district, to be open in a few weeks.

She said she felt she was on the Titanic and there was no room in the lifeboats for her and other people who felt like her.

Her comments stuck with me.

It comes to me that the Titanic is a great analogy for where this great county is right now.

All the technology you can ask for.

All the power and services you can ask for.

All the anything you could ask for.

And neighbors, let me tell you, the story ends the same way.

THE

SHIP

SINKS.

We can argue on the course that got us here.

We can argue about who gets in the lifeboats.

We can argue about how to launch the lifeboats.

But in the end.

The story ends the same way.

The

Ship

Sinks.

I am getting more and more used to the idea that WE ARE ON THE TITANIC.

We are sinking.

Congress seems to think we have time to argue about it.

A lot of people seems to think we have time to argue about it.

This morning on TV I heard what I think was a one time Sec of Treasury in another (GW BUSH, OBAMA) administration who said it wasn’t the amount of financial aid in the next the stimulus package it was the LENGTH OF TIME the package would be available.

I cling to that.

One voice saying look at the length of time here folks.

I feel like these arguments and discussions on payments, masks, schools, quarantine, social distancing and what not are important, but in the grand scheme, no one will care.

Why?

Because.

The

Ship

Sinks.

The end of the story stays the same.

Only this time, I do not think any one is going to like how the story ends.

7.23.2020 – every nation gets

every nation gets
the government it deserves
argue, though it fits

“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite” said Joseph de Maistre (1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) as recorded in the Correspondance diplomatique, tome 2. Paris : Michel Lévy frères libraires éditeurs, 1860, p.196.

And if you wonder why every nation gets the government it deserves, Maistre argued that constitutions are not the product of human reason, but rather come from God, who slowly brings them to maturity.

Or, as Thomas Jefferson put it (and I have quoted this quote far to often but I am going to keep quoting it until it sinks in);

“Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just:

that his justice cannot sleep for ever:

that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events:

that it may become probable by supernatural interference!

The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest”

Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: Manners

7.21.202 – ten, twelve hours a day

ten, twelve hours a day
8 cents a box, drops to 6
pictures for today

Today’s haiku comes from the poem, Onion Days, by Carl Sandburg, that I recently ran across.

It is a poem about a woman who picks onions 10 to 12 hours a day for 8 cents a box.

The owner of the farm worries about how to make his farm produce more efficiently so he hires more workers so he only has to pay 6 cents a box.

The poem was written in 1916.

I also recently watched the movie ‘The Irishman”.

I wonder if its time for DeNiro and Pesci to close the door on mob movies but I digress.

The movie was about Jimmy Hoffa, a man today more famous for not being here than for what he did when he was here.

And that’s too bad.

Right or wrong in his methods, Hoffa cared about the people who did the working.

Not sure there is anyone in that role today.

His first strike was on the loading dock of a grocery company in 1931.

The crew on the loading dock was expected to work 12 hours shifts.

They were paid 32 cents an hour.

12 cents in cash and 20 cents in credits at the grocery store.

BUT they were only paid for the time they spent actually unloading trucks.

Hoffa organized the crew and on a hot summer day when truckloads of strawberries rolled in, they went on strike.

They demanded a full 32 cents an hour in cash and a minimum of 4 hours pay for a 12 hour day.

The grocery store, a place called KROGER, gave in a signed a one year contract.

Congress will meet this week to ‘discuss’ a further stimulus package.

How many of them are really thinking of the people who work.

Don’t the men and women of Congress enjoy chanting the Nicene creed with their daughters on each side of them joining their voices with theirs?

I am lucky.

I have a well paying job and am allowed to work from home.

No one would ever write a play about me.

But as Mr. Sandburg says in his poem about Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti …

or the crew on the loading dock …

or the people who need to work and can’t work because there is not enough work …

or can’t work enough because stores are closing …

because restaurants are closing …

because businesses everywhere are closing …

No dramatist living COULD put them into a play.

No one could capture that.

In 1916, in 1931, or today.

But I hope the men and women in Congress at least think about them this week

– – – – – – – – – – –

Onion Days in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg, (1916)

Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti comes along Peoria Street every morning at nine o’clock

With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet.

Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, whose husband was killed in a tunnel explosion through the negligence of a fellow-servant,

Works ten hours a day, sometimes twelve, picking onions for Jasper on the Bowmanville road.

She takes a street car at half-past five in the morning, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti does,

And gets back from Jasper’s with cash for her day’s work, between nine and ten o’clock at night.

Last week she got eight cents a box, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, picking onions for Jasper,

But this week Jasper dropped the pay to six cents a box because so many women and girls were answering the ads in the Daily News.

Jasper belongs to an Episcopal church in Ravenswood and on certain Sundays

He enjoys chanting the Nicene creed with his daughters on each side of him joining their voices with his.

If the preacher repeats old sermons of a Sunday, Jasper’s mind wanders to his 700-acre farm and how he can make it produce more efficiently

And sometimes he speculates on whether he could word an ad in the Daily News so it would bring more women and girls out to his farm and reduce operating costs.

Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti is far from desperate about life; her joy is in a child she knows will arrive to her in three months.

And now while these are the pictures for today there are other pictures of the Giovannitti people I could give you for to-morrow,

And how some of them go to the county agent on winter mornings with their baskets for beans and cornmeal and molasses.

I listen to fellows saying here’s good stuff for a novel or it might be worked up into a good play.

I say there’s no dramatist living can put old Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti into a play with that kindling wood piled on top of her head coming along Peoria Street nine o’clock in the morning.

7.18.2020 – nation in conflict

nation in conflict
tendency of society
to human blindness

C.S. Lewis explains how a democracy comes in an end in the short essay, “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” (1959), first published as an article in the Saturday Evening Post.

The ‘Toast” is a sequel to the Screwtape Letters.

Lewis writes, presenting the views of those managing Hell, that:

“We, in Hell, would welcome the disappearance of democracy in the strict sense of that word, the political arrangement so called.

Like all forms of government, it often works to our advantage, but on the whole less often than other forms.

And what we must realize is that “democracy” in the diabolical sense (I’m as good as you, Being Like Folks, Togetherness) is the fittest instrument we could possibly have for extirpating political democracies from the face of the earth.

For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first sign of criticism.

And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be.

For when such a nation meets in conflict a nation where children have been made to work at school, where talent is placed in high posts, and where the ignorant mass are allowed no say at all in public affairs, only one result is possible.

The democracies were surprised lately when they found that Russia had got ahead of them in science.

What a delicious specimen of human blindness!

If the whole tendency of their society is opposed to every sort of excellence, why did they expect their scientists to excel?

It is our function to encourage the behaviour, the manners, the whole attitude of mind, which democracies naturally like and enjoy, because these are the very things which, if unchecked, will destroy democracy.

You would almost wonder that even humans don’t see it themselves.”

I agree.

Except for the word, “almost.”

I wonder.

I wonder why even humans don’t see it themselves.

Governments fall back on bread and circuses for one reason.

Bread and circuses work.

7.16.2020 – Only thing to fear

Only thing to fear,
is fear itself and that what’s
we got, fear itself!

I stole that line.

I am not talking about the, “Only thing to fear …” line.

That line came from Frankin Roosevelt’s 1st inaugural address.

There is some history that that line was suggested by FDR advisor, Louie Howe.

There is also some thought that the line may have had it roots in the Sept 7, 1851, entry in the journal of Henry Thoreau that read, “nothing is so much to be feared as fear.”

And there is some more thought that the line goes back to back to Francis Bacon in 1623 when he wrote, Nil terrible nisi ipse timor, or, Nothing is terrible except fear itself. (De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, Fortitudo – 1623).

Nope.

Not that line.

I am talking about stealing or in today’s usage, repurposing the line, “That’s what we got, fear itself.”

That line was said by Deputy Barney Fife in season 4, episode 2, The Haunted House, (air date October 7, 1963)’ (did you ever notice how you can quote Andy Griffith Show episode references like you were citing a Shakespeare quote, ie “we band of brothers” from Henry V, Act IV Scene iii).

The Internet Movie Database or IMDB credits a Mr. Harvey Bullock as the writer of the scene and I will go with that.

Remember that Opie and his buddies got their baseball into the ‘old Rimshaw Place” and when they went to get the ball, they were scared out of the place by sounds and rumors of ghosts that haunted the house.

Andy tells Barney to go get the baseball and Barney, with Gomer, gets scared out of the place.

Andy chides Barney with, “Wasn’t it you that said we got nothing to fear but fear itself?”

To which Barney replies, “Well that’s exactly what I’ve got – fear itself.”

Sometimes the 1st step in dealing with a problem is admitting you have a problem.

And that is where I am.

I think about politics, the world at large, covid and the economy.

What do I get for my thinking?

I got problem.

And what is that problem I got.

I will tell exactly what I got.

Fear Itself!

As an end note, the Andy Griffith show exterior shots were filmed at Forty Acres in Culver City, California.

This is the same back lot where the movie Gone with the Wind was shot in the ’30s.

The exterior of the Rimshaw Place is a house on the lot right next door to the house and front porch used both as Andy’s home in Mayberry and the Atticus Finch home in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird.

The Rimshaw Place itself was used for the exterior of the Miss Pittypat’s home in Atlanta.

Where Rhett Butler carries Miss Melly to a wagon to get out of town, Clark Gable carried Olivia de Haviland down that walk past where Andy, Barney and Gomer stare at the haunted house in Mayberry.