What the hell are we doing?

From my 21stC Journal of a 20thC  Man: 

I awoke thinking about the war. What the hell are we doing? We should be focusing on ending our war, our illegal, unjustifiable American/Iranian war of choice, using our time and energy, using our best people, to find a settlement to end this horror. Instead, we are using our time and energy seeking settlement of someone else’s war, one between Israel and Lebanon. We are not in that war. We have no troops on the ground (I hope!) We are not bombing either Lebanon or Israel. Theirs is not our war. We ought to be gone, to deny support and provision of our precious arms to either combatant. To unlink negotiations.

I know, as always, easier said than done. In America, strong voices call out support Israel; other strong voices yell support Lebanon, few say to hell with both of you. In Iran, the strong voices say Lebanon is also a victim of the USA for Israel is but America’s agent. Others say America is Israel’s agent. The Israeli/Lebanese war, Iran says, must be included in whatever cease fire or suspension is to be reached with America.

This makes it impossible for us. We should simply stop. Shift the world’s attention to Lebanon and Israel. Humiliation of not “winning” is better than escalation of death and destruction, loss of face better than loss of blood. And if done deftly, by accomplished diplomats of which we have a few and explained by glib and gifted spokesmen of which we have many, we might come to be seen by some as one of the peacemakers of whom Christians, Jews, and Muslims speak so highly.

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

Among the ten writers who contributed to the screenplay of The Wizard of Oz, Noel Langley is the most likely author of the famous line Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard, delivered when TOTO pulled back the green curtain to reveal an old charlatan frantically trying to manipulate the smoke and noise machine which created his fearsome image. Remind you of anything or anyone haunting our dreams today? And how about those flying monkey ICE agents? Remember Judy Garlands' remonstrance: "You’re a very bad man!” Langley had Morgan reply with genuine humility, "Oh, no my dear,  I'm just a very bad Wizard."

We're unlikely to hear such humility from our charlatan. TOTO raises a fundamental question for us: who are the folks behind the curtain? Who are these folks guiding, animating, managing the would-be wizard and his executive orders? What is their stake?

Do I believe Trump studies or even cares about issues like (today's NYT) who picks the art that appears in our overseas embassies? Does he know how the American artist representing us at the Venice Bienniel is selected? Does he care that that artist is an ex-pat who emigrated to Mexico years ago? Appointed by a luxury pet food dealer from Tampa? Who behind the curtain does?

Who behind the curtain has an interest in psychedelic drug deregulation and accelerated FDA clearance, particularly of Ibogaine, the leading psychedelic of interest? Ibogaine World, a Cameroon-based company whose corporate structure, finances, officers, and ownership are unknown is also the leading supplier of Ibogaine and will play a primary role in Trump-ordered accelerated FDA testing and clearance. Such exploration of psychedelics and mental health appears a promising avenue of research, but who behind the curtain is pushing it and why?

Is it likely that Trump really cares about professional baseball regulation and operation of the college football transfer portal? Judging from his Executive Order somebody behind the curtain does. What is their stake in this? 

A recent order deals with the definition of Made in America. Did he really concern himself in that or did someone behind the curtain manage that one? Those folks behind the curtain have discovered a powerful tool for effecting their agendas. Other March and April ExecOrders deal with elections, DEI, housing, fraud, FEMA oversight, sports, manufacturing, and consumer protection. Who initiated these? Who is behind these revisions to our economy, our social structure, how we raise and educate our kids? And what's in it for them -- ideological purity? Insider advantage? Reduced regulatory obstacles? Or just power for powers sake?

You don't need to use Executive Orders to gain admittance behind the curtain. Who is pushing reductions in air and water emission standards? Reduction in renewable energy commitments? Reduction of incentives for adoption of EVs? The list is endless; the damage senseless -- except to those who put their self-interest ahead of the nation's.

We'd better start paying attention to those folks behind the curtain before they restructure America to a new set of values and priorities through their control over the aging charlatan dozing in his gilded, oval office.

Manners, the magic sauce of marriage.

Those of you that have access to my journal can answer the question of why no blog posts since March 6th.  It was the 5th when I took a header during a zoom session, my entry into the doldrums of health care and injury treatment. But enough , , ,,

I have been married off and on for 65 years. How often I have heard said, or read, that marriage takes hard work. Not sure I agree.

It wasn't lack of effort that sank Barbara's and my marriage. Well, maybe in a way it was. I put a lot of effort into the marriage -- but enough? Who am I to say? But Barbara did not, could not. Not a fault; she just did not have any effort to spare from her struggle with chemical dependency, in her case dependency on JD. Even after achieving sobriety, her efforts were rightly focused on her demons.

That is the extreme situation. If less afflicted folks adopt a simple standard, marriage is easy. That simple standard? Manners. Manners your Mother taught you. Manners the Golden Rule yields. Manners the Boy and Girl Scouts taught. Manners my Aunt Sis used to push on her nephew and nieces.

Good manners are practiced less and less in this coarsening country of ours. Ann's friend Mary Mitchell swims upstream, writing about and lecturing on manners as a business: lecturer at the State Dept's Foreign Service Institute, consultant to a broad array of international corporations, author of nine books on etiquette and civility, plus Mary in person, politeness personified.

Manners and marriage? Show gratitude. Listen carefully and without judgement. Listen without interrupting. Smile. Imagine oneself in your spouse's shoes. Patience and forbearance. Express, explicitly, admiration for those qualities that attracted you in the first place for the roots of those are likely viable in both of you. Take the initiative. Converse; conversation is the universal solvent.

Time dulls these if one is not self-aware. Pain and physical problems of one's own turn one's attention inward. I am now struggling with this. Practice selflessness -- putting the needs of another ahead of your own. Selflessness is hard to habituate and sustain. 

And of course, show to others the mannerly behavior one wants to receive, aka the Golden Rule. 

Manners make marriage easy -- well, not easy, perhaps, but manners are the lubricants that make marriage increasingly easier. It is not hard work to be polite, to show respect, to demonstrate empathy, to smile -- perhaps to laugh. 

 

We are bombing the city I long to love, Shiraz.

Extensive damage to residential and commercial areas of the metro area are reported. We have totally destroyed the emergency response center. Fifty-two casualties, including twenty deaths, have been reported in Zibashahr, a suburb of Shiraz.

Care is apparently being taken in targeting: none of Shiraz's famed mosques, the tombs of Hafez and Saadi, its world-famed gardens, the Shah Cheragh Shrine (pictured), and others of this world  UNESCO site have reported any damage. Hardly good news amongst that of the casualties and destruction of this illegal war of choice. but a glimmer of hope for recovery of the city I so long to see and love one day.

This war may seem remote, unreal, but it is brutishly real, indeed, to friends of mine (un-named until it is safe to name them,)

Saturday, Feb 28th. Another day Donald Trump failed to understand a lesson from History

Even as Senior US Diplomats and Mid-Eastern experts, aka Trump’s golfing partner and Son-in-law, held on-going negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Netanyahu and Trump launched their own Pearl Harbor attacks on Iran. Iran claimed to have just offered terms that were better “deals” than Obama and Biden got, deals that should have appeased Trump and Netanyahu. But when Trump is fixated – in this case, on using his and Pete Hegseth’s new toys—like it or not, war is what you’re going to get.

Provoked? Some might argue so – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Beirut barracks bombings of 1983. But certainly not self-defense; no one attacks in self-defense of negotiation. On our part, a war of choice. Iran has retaliated with attacks on Bahrain, Dubai of the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Yemen threatens to strangle the Straits of Bab al-Mandab, imperiling world trade; Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, driving up oil prices. Even Turkey may be drawn in. Russia has sounded off but so far only with words. Europe remains silent.

We have started a broad, Mid-East war without authorization, without our Western once-allies, with faulty rationale and childish hopes that out of the ashes of a repressive theocracy will bloom a popular democratic republic. Oh, what a bold and visionary Mr. Trump – idiot!

What is more likely to emerge is a state only a Stephen Miller could respect – one rooted in the power of an ideologically driven, resentful, militant militia seeking revenge on Israel and her allies and determined  to dominate its Arab neighbors.

The cork isn’t likely to be put back into this bottle for years to come.

BTW: the Lesson? Don't muck about in the Middle East unless you know exactly how you will get out of the muck. (The Dardanelles, for England. Afghanistan, for Russia and the US; for the US alone: Iraq.) 

A Mockery

Today's State of the Union Address makes a mockery of responsible governance and accountability. The drafters of Article Two of the Constitution, which deals with the Presidency -- the who, what and how of him (so far) and how he is to be held accountable, probably were thinking along the lines of town halls and annual meetings. 

The Constitution reads, Article Two, Section 3,"he shall from time to time give to the Congress information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; . . .." 

George Washington delivered the first such "information" on January 8th, 1790, in the Federal Hall in New York City. (Congress met in New York for a year, then in Philadelphia while awaiting a new Capitol in the Federal District of Columbia.) President Washington's address of 1,089 words took about 10 minutes to deliver. 

Washington had four matters to "recommend to their Consideration": a standing army; a national University; support for and development of manufactures (by which he threw his full endorsement to Hamilton's vision of America as against Jefferson's America made up of self-sufficient farmers and plantation owners,) and -- of course -- immigration. 

Washington's concern about immigration was how to promote it and to link it with programs to integrate immigrants into their new country, something my Grandfather Halley Waller became renowned for 100 years later, as developer of the YMCA's Americanization Programs.

Isn't it interesting: 200 years, the same themes -- national defense, education, industrial development, and immigration. Whatever . . ..

Jefferson was not so hot a public speaker, so he submitted his annual report on the State of the Union in  writing. That became the precedent all the way up to Woodrow Wilson, who again delivered orally, in person what was then called The Annual Message. 

Mass media broadcasting gave an irresistible opportunity to shift from reporting to selling, to shift from Congress as audience to public as audience. Coolidge, who had so little to say, was first to use radio to say it to the nation in 1923. Television was even more irresistible; Truman latched onto it for his address in 1947 and that's when the Annual Message was reframed as The State of the Union Address.

And who turned it into a show? Why, Ronald Reagan, of course, in 1982. He called out a heroic Lenny Skutnik to stand in the gallery and be duly honored; such now de rigeur elements of the evening are called "skutniks" by the show's writers and producers. 

From 1982, year by year, in the hands of smooth-talker Clinton, good ol'boy Bush, and the Don, the state of the Union Address has become a performance, more show and less report, fewer recommendations for consideration. It is now a mockery of responsible governance.

What to do about it? I am going to send this to Adam Smith, my representative, and to my Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. And I will not tune in again until there is some indicator that changes are being made. 

This year's State of the Union Address was important for what was not addressed: an immanent and illegal attack on a sovereign nation; a dangerous build up of debt -- corporate, personal, and national; continual deficit spending; voter suppression; irresponsible trade policies; unaffordable child care; the needs of the unhoused; and growing inequities in household incomes and wealth. 

All politics have performative elements, but when performance outweighs substance, politicians beware. The public will see through empty show soon enough, and demand substance once again. Remember "Where's the beef?" ?

 

Have I the Strength? Have I Time? Have I the Wit?

Do not read this as an end-game announcement. Nor as s surrender to self-pity. I merely intend to describe what the last couple of months have been like – just so you know, as Ann so often says. I guess the more telling question is why do I want you to know? Well, whatever, I do.

Each cervical vertebrae, yeh, in the neck, has an opening called a foramen between itself and the next. Through these foramina (isn't that a lovely word?) flow lubricants, pass the spinal nerves carrying  messages to and from elsewhere in the body, activating various muscles, and cushioning the discs that pad the bones.

And when those foramina (I love new words!) get inflamed and squeezed shut all hell breaks loose. And that’s been my story of the last two months: severe neck pain and restricted range of rotation of the head (leading to my having given up the car keys;) sharp pain in the rib cage, fiery torso, painful hip, a constant cramp in the butt, a tendency to walk haltingly and to stoop. To straighten up and to walk briskly, even with my cane, are acts of will as Ann regularly reminds me.

And my time (and Ann’s since she must drive) has been dominated by a parade of appointments: multiple CT-scans, multiple MRI’s, Dr. consultations, cardiac-watch on anti-coagulant levels and blood density, and on and on. Tomorrow: a Spect scan. Never heard of it? Neither had I.

Earlier this week I acknowledged to my Hamilton class President and the college alumni office the troubles I have been having fulfilling my responsibilities as class secretary. I resigned that role: simplification.

I now will focus on two projects (plus daily journaling, from which this is derived): seeing Making Music with My Friends through to publication and Constantine’s Flame to installation, I hope at Horizon House.

Have I strength to wrestle stone? Have I time to finish the manuscript? Have I wit to be interesting in both formats? Well, that's my intent -- to make time, to build strength, and to nourish the wit. Cheer me on. I need your energy. 

 

PS At one place in this piece I place punctuation inside a parenthesis; in another, outside the parenthesis. The hell with it; just hedge the bet.