2.27.2020 – The sky is falling

The Sky is falling!
Aarne-Thompson-Uther scale!
Run and tell the King!

I saw on the news where a Flight Attendant was identified as having coronavirus.

She had walked through LAX, the international airport in Los Angeles.

Not to worry as the entire terminal was being disinfected.

I then saw video of people wearing trash bag like ‘haz-mat’ suits spraying fog all over the interior of LAX with leaf blowers.

I have tried to find out just what I will experience when I get coronavirus.

Seems to me that for a week or so I will have aches and pains, a cough and a fever.

This isn’t On the Beach.

We aren’t in Australia after the world’s powers have destroyed themselves in a nuclear war.

We are not all waiting for the unavoidable, fatal dose of radiation.

It’s the flu.

People are dying from coronavirus to be sure.

Sometimes I feel that I have a better chance of being in a fatal car crash driving on i85 in Atlanta everyday than I do of being killed by the coronavirus.

I get on i85 everyday without a thought.

I drive on i85 concerned only with how long it will take.

What is going on here.

IN A WORLD GONE C R A Z Y, we need a Franklin Roosevelt to say, “All we have to fear … is fear itself.”

Good luck with that.

Good luck with getting that message out.

I work in news.

The company line is, “We are here to INFORM not SCARE YOU.”

Monica Lewinsky said, “No editor ever assigned a story that wouldn’t get eyeballs.”

And the eyeballs are focused on the DEADLY COVID-19.

It’s OUTSIDE OF YOUR DOOR.

It’s GOING TO GET YOU.

Nothing new here really I guess.

By now you must be wondering.

What is the Aarne-Thompson-Uther scale?

Is it a measure of a pandemic?

Is it a type of flu?

Is it a reference to panic levels in a crowd?

Aarne-Thompson-Uther type or more accurately, Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 20C, is the classification of folktales that includes the story of Chicken Little

According to Wikipedia, “The story is listed as Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 20C, which includes international examples of folktales that make light of paranoia and mass hysteria. There are several Western versions of the story, of which the best-known concerns a chick that believes the sky is falling when an acorn falls on its head. The chick decides to tell the king and on its journey meets other animals (mostly other fowl) which join it in the quest. After this point, there are many endings. In the most familiar, a fox invites them to its lair and then eats them all. Alternatively, the last one, usually Cocky Lockey, survives long enough to warn the chick, who escapes. In others all are rescued and finally speak to the king.”

Paranoia and mass hysteria.

Add this to social media and a fire will get started that cannot be extinguished.

It is sad.

It is really sad.

The story Chicken Little goes back to the 1800’s.

Haven’t grown up much since then.

So easy to give in to the paranoia and mass hysteria.

So easy to go along.

Nothing new there either.

Back in 1600, Big Bill wrote in his play, Hamlet,

“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.”

2.26.2020 – Everyone gets sick

Everyone gets sick
Everyone has guns – panic
This will not end well

Fill a large pot with water.

Water from Flint, Michigan works best.

Add 1 full measure of bread and milk anxiety.

The type of anxiety on display when supplies of bread and milk are wiped out due to predicted bad weather.

And equal measures of any type of fear you have laying around.

Fear of getting sick.

Fear of sick people.

Fear of guns.

Fear of losing guns.

Fear of Immigrants.

Fear of being poor.

Fear of the poor.

Fear of other people.

Fear of other people who look different.

Fear of other people who speak a different language.

And several spoonfuls of outrage.

Outrage caused by the possibility of getting sick when it is a Constitutional Right of Americans to never be sick.

It is in the CONSTITUTION for crying out loud.

I would prove it if I wasn’t so busy, but its in there.

Outrage by the Government not doing enough to prevent everybody from getting sick.

Add generous helpings of media coverage.

Stir well.

Cover tightly with lid.

Place pot on social media and set to boil.

Stand back and see what this Country is really made of.

Talk about eye wide shut.

Looking at an accident with hands over the eyes.

I would use that wonderful German term, schadenfreude, or pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune, except that this won’t be another person’s misfortune.

It is going to ours!

It is my prediction that the outcome of the election this November will be decided by how the Coronavirus is handled.

How it is handled by the people.

How it is handled by the media.

How it handled by the Government.

How it is handled by the Candidates.

How it is handled by the President.

By the President …..

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

2.25.2020 – wealth and privilege

wealth and privilege
empathetic perspective
bias of money

In the movie Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane, played by Orson Welles, explains why he is attacking the money and the trusts that are trying to run the city.

Kane says, “I am the publisher of the Enquirer. As such, it is my duty – I’ll let you in on a little secret, it is also my pleasure – to see to it that decent, hard-working people of this city are not robbed blind by a group of money – mad pirates because, God help them, they have no one to look after their interests! I’ll let you in on another little secret, Mr. Thatcher. I think I’m the man to do it. You see, I have money and property –

If I don’t defend the interests of the underprivileged, somebody else will – maybe somebody without any money or any property and that would be too bad.”

Is this what motivates the billionaire of today to enter politics?

They have money and property and if they don’t defend ‘the working man’ someone else will.

A someone without any money and property.

And that would be too bad.

Too bad for who?

The people with money and property?

I cannot figure where, why or what is motivating these billionaires.

Barbara Holland wrote of the Roosevelt’s, that their money was so old, it didn’t crackle anymore, it whispered.

Mr. FD Roosvelt (to keep him straight from his cousin and wife’s uncle, TR Roosevelt) was born rich.

Mr. Roosevelt had it all.

Money, privilege and position.

And then he got polio.

Then he ran for Governor of New York and President of the United States.

Ran in the political sense of word as after the polio, he had to use a wheelchair.

Eleanor Roosevelt was once asked if the polio had affected FDR’s mind at all.

Anyone who has gone through great suffering,” Eleanor explained, “is bound to have a greater sympathy and understanding of the problems of mankind.”

Somewhere I read a version of this quote that Eleanor said polio had affected his mind.

It taught him to understand the hopeless.

In his 2nd Inaugural address, FDR said, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. … The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Worth repeating, The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

A third time, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

I want Roosevelt again.

POSTSCRIPT: A story was told back in the day that after FDR died in 1945, a Republican was laughing at a Democrat, saying “who are you gonna get to run now?” The Democrat shook his head and said, “Don’t know, we will dig someone up.” “NO NO NO PLEASE,” said the Republican.

ONE last thing, many Political Scientists and Historians don’t think that Mr. Truman was elected in 1948 but that FDR was reelected for a 5th term.

2.23.2020 – Name an iron man?

Name an iron man?
Heaven looks graciously down
Freedom still calls him

This country used to celebrate the birthday of George Washington.

Along came Mr. Lincoln and it seemed only fair to give him a day a well. At least in Illinois.

Somewhere along the line, as General Washington and Mr. Lincoln moved further away in the rear view mirror, it seemed unfair that the other President’s would be held to such a standard and the day morphed into President’s Day though there is some confusion.

There is more confusion over the day itself.

The February 11th vs. February 22nd story but not to get into that today.

Carl Sandburg wrote of The General;

“The name of an iron man goes over the world.
It takes a long time to forget an iron man.“

I have been to his home.

I have been to the top o hisf monument.

I have been to his grave.

I have been to the place where he might have been buried in the US Capitol Building.

I have seen the interesting interpretation of him by Horatio Greenough that caused much discussion in 1840 and today.

As a side note, Greenough also sculpted a group of figures for the East Front of the US Captiol.

The sculpture depicted a Danial Boone type grabbing a Native American warrior about to tomahawk chop a settler woman and her baby.

The sculpture was titled, “The Rescue” and can been seen in photographs of the Lincoln Inaugeration.

The statue was removed during the 1958 renovation of the US Capitol and never returned.

There are reports that while moving it in storage, the Smithsonian dropped it.

To return the General.

I agree with Sandburg.

It takes along time to forget an iron man.

The more I read and the more I study the man, more the myth of the man falls away.

It all seems true.

When you match up The General against the other guys who have held office, I am telling you, The General deserves his day.

To even think to compare him to other Presidents is just dumb.

The current President came to mind as I thought about The General.

Maybe it was too much to expect anyone to match up the guy who has a 555 foot monument outside your bedroom window.

To give the current President a break, I turned from The General as President and as General to Washington the boy.

I turned to the story of George Washington and the Cherry tree.

I got as far as the line, “Father I cannot tell a lie.”

‘Tis Washington’s health–fill a bumper all round,
For he is our glory and pride.
Our arms shall in battle with conquest be crown’d
Whilst virtue and he’s on our side.

‘Tis Washington’s health–loud cannons should roar,
And trumpets the truth should proclaim:
There cannot be found, search all the world o’er,
His equal in virtue and fame.

‘Tis Washington’s health–our hero to bless,
May heaven look graciously down:
Oh! Long may he live, our hearts to possess,
And freedom still call him her own.

WASHINGTON MONUMENT BY NIGHT by Carl Sandburg

The stone goes straight.
A lean swimmer dives into night sky,
Into half-moon mist.

Two trees are coal black.
This is a great white ghost between.
It is cool to look at,
Strong men, strong women, come here.

Eight years is a long time
To be fighting all the time.

The republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.

The wind bit hard at Valley Forge one Christmas.
Soldiers tied rags on their feet.
Red footprints wrote on the snow . . .
. . . and stone shoots into stars here
. . . into half-moon mist tonight.

Tongues wrangled dark at a man.
He buttoned his overcoat and stood alone.
In a snowstorm, red hollyberries, thoughts, he stood alone.

Women said: He is lonely
. . . fighting . . . fighting . . . eight years . . .

The name of an iron man goes over the world.
It takes a long time to forget an iron man.

2.19.2020 – Beg your pardon? But …

Beg your pardon? But …
suspension of disbelief
You see his new clothes?

I don’t agree much with the current President.

But I feel I have to cut him some slack.

Mr. Sam Rayburn, a past man of house, advised new members of Congress to ‘Vote their District.’

Mr. Trump, if nothing else, has the support of his core electorate.

I am not in that core.

I should not expect to approve of what he does or says.

I should not and I do not.

It is what it is.

But these pardons.

Are you kidding me?

My wife asked with everything else, why was I so worked up over these pardons?

Like I said, I can understand most of what Mr. Trump does.

It’s politics.

But Rod Blagojevich?

That is just dumb.

S T O O O P I D.

If there was one case.

If there was one person.

One person that the collective country as a whole would point at and say ‘UNCLEAN’.

One person who truly deserved his punishment.

I would have said Rod Blagojevich.

I do not suffer fools gladly.

Mr. Trump makes dumb and foolish political decisions but they are still part of politics.

This is just dumb and foolish.

This is running around naked and saying, “look at my new suit.”

Sorry but I don’t see the suit and sorry but I am not sorry.

I can see no purpose to this but to piss people off and thumb his nose not at just his detractors but at every single person in this country.

Fiction writers strive to bring readers to suspend their disbelief and accept the story being told by the writer.

I have to suspend my disbelief as Mr. Trump runs around naked.

I cannot accept he is wearing the new suit.

Michael Corleone said it best in the movie, The Godfather.

Michael got Carlo to confess that he had sold out the Family and set up Sonny.

Michael tells Carlo, “But don’t keep saying you’re innocent; it insults my intelligence and makes me angry.”

That is where I am.