3.11.2020 – call for normalcy

call for normalcy
meant to say normality
he said normalty

A candidate for the Presidency has called for a Return to Normalcy.

I have to ask, is the Candidate or the campaign handlers aware of the history of “Return to Normalcy?”

After 10 ballots and discussions in a smoke filled room, Warren G. Harding came out of the 1920 Republican Convention in Chicago as the party’s candidate for President.

Mr. Harding ran on the slogan, “Return to Normalcy.”

Saying in a speech in Boston on May 14, 1920, Mr. Harding said, “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

I was taught that the speech was written as “not nostrums, but normality.”

I was also taught that the candidate delivered the speech as “not nostrums, but normalty.“

My teaching went on that the press of the day in quoting the speech wrote down “not nostrums, but normalcy.“

What was said, heard and recorded became a side story of the 1920 campaign.

According to an article in the Guardian, “Samuel Gompers complained that “Senator Harding does not use the word ‘normal’. He speaks of ‘normalcy’. The word is obsolete, and so is the condition to which he would return”.

And the Daily Chronicle of London kept the embers warm by sneering, in April of 1921, “Mr. Harding is accustomed to take desperate ventures in the coinage of new words.”

Poor Warren G Harding: “normalcy” had been in use (albeit in specialized contexts) from 1857, as had all other words he was accused of having coined in equal parts idiocy and elitism.

But his legacy was quickly established. “His mind was vague and fuzzy”, Frederick Allen writes in 1931:Its quality was revealed in the clogged style of his public addresses, in his choice of turgid and maladroit language (“non-involvement” in European affairs, “adhesion” to a treaty), and in his frequent attacks of suffix trouble (“normalcy” for normality, “betrothement” for betrothal).” Obama didn’t use improper grammar. Cut him and other public figures a break (Oct 29, 2018)

What is fascintating is Mr. Harding’s defense of the word.

Mr. Harding took on a Trumpian point of view and to deny that use of the normalcy was incorrect.

He went so far to say that normality was not a word and stated publicly, “I have noticed that word caused considerable news editors to change it to “normality”. I have looked for “normality” in my dictionary and I do not find it there. “Normalcy”, however, I did find, and it is a good word.”

So the Candidate wants a return to nomalcy.

I have no problem with that.

Presidential campaigns have been noted for repeated stumbles, miscues and mental lapses.

And this campaign looks to Harding for inspiration?

Maybe it will work out for them.

As Mr. Harding himself said later, “Every student has the ability to be a successful learner.”

3.2.2020 – hope, righteous fury

hope, righteous fury
dark waters, mirrors and light
disquiet runs deeper

“We normally think people with a lot of resources and political skills are the ones who participate, but many citizens in this category regularly abstain from politics. Furthermore, many citizens with few resources can be mobilized if they experience strong anger.

“Anger leads citizens to harness existing skills and resources in a given election. Therefore, the process by which emotions are produced in each campaign can powerfully alter electoral outcomes.”

Quoted from “Anger motivates people to vote, U-M study shows”

As a footnote, all the word combinations in today’s haiku appear in headlines or abstracts on the the landing page of https://www.theguardian.com/us on March 2, 2020 at 7:30AM EST.

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.