History

Sunday Morning Reading

“Cowardice is stronger than common sense.”

Another Sunday with yet another stab a sharing some Sunday Morning Reading. What caught my eye this week revolved around history, featuring fiddle players, photography, and a bit of Chekov among other topics. Rosin up the bow and enjoy.

Guillaume gryn_dvs kv5v3 Yh _M unsplash. Black-and-white close-up of an older man playing a violin, wearing a light fedora with a dark band and a patterned shirt, focused with an expressive, open-mouthed expression as he draws the bow across the strings.

Kicking things off are two great pieces from Robin Ince. He jump starts the first with a well worn quote from James Baldwin:

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

I think we’ve all been gaslit a time or two in our lives. Even if you think you haven’t you should give both The Gaslight Years — Part One and To The End — Gaslighting Part Two a read. I think the fact that Baldwin wrote “hates” in the plural tells a tale.

“Agreement is cheap. Challenge is expensive.” So, says JA Westenberg in The Intellectual Circle Jerk And Why We Can’t Stop. Regardless of the hit to the pocketbook, both come with a cost.

We’ve always fought over history, even while we’re making it. Fine to fight over it, because history teaches us you can’t erase it, no matter how hard you try. Kelsey Ables takes a look at The New History Wars.

Speaking of history, Alan Palazon looks into The Forgotten Photographer Who Put A US President In The White House — And Pioneered Photographic Branding.

Harrison Smith tells the story of Violet Hensley. She Set Aside The Fiddle To Raise Children. At 99, She Made Her Opry Debut. Ms. Hensley recently passed away. Rest in peace.

I’m glad to see that Natasha MH keeps pursuing her art and her writing about it. Check out In The Canvas Grotto.

And to close, here’s a piece from 2018 that Neil Steinberg pulled out of his archives to highlight again this week. Glad he did. The title is a famous quote from Anton Chekov. Cowardice Is Stronger Than Common Sense. Maybe history does just rhyme after all.

(Image from Guillaume Gryn DVS on Unsplash)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.

We’re Going To Need A Bigger Woodshed

Angry thoughts.

“We’re going to need a bigger boat.” I’m reminded of that great moment and line marrying comedy and horror together in the movie Jaws, when Roy Scheider’s hero realizes he and is compatriots are up against a bigger challenge than they thought after seeing the shark up close.

Shutterstock 2567949113. A weathered, ramshackle wooden shed with a corrugated metal and tarp exterior, filled with scrap wood, planks, and discarded building materials, standing in an overgrown field surrounded by dry brush and green trees.

With so many sharks swimming around and feeding freely these day, in my own warped little mind that line twists and turns a bit, when I think of all of the punishment I’d like to see meted out whenever some semblance of sanity returns to the world, if it ever does. Along those twists and turns I imagine taking all of these villains to the woodshed my mother always threatened me that my father was going to take me to when he got home on one of the many days I misbehaved.

What’s funny about that twist is we never had a woodshed. It didn’t matter. Any room or location would do when it came time to teach me a lesson. Yup. It was a different era and that kind of lesson wasn’t frowned on like it is now. We did have an a old out building down the hill in the woods. Until I and my neighbors burned it down playing with matches. Given that my father was the chief of the volunteer fire department you can imagine how the aftermath of that unfolded.

But to the point, we’ve essentially given matches and cans of gasoline to so many prepubescents and adolescents masquerading as adults in so many sectors of our lives and are watching the smoke rise out of the trees down the hill. If not the flames licking at our foundations.

I’m starting to get the sense that even with fresh outrages flaring up each day, with no help from those who seem to know better, that too many are becoming content to let things just burn out, hoping for some sort of regrowth under the ashes.

Call me old fashioned, or just call me old. But either way, most of the damage that’s being done in our political, social, and technological lives seems to be egged on by some who might have profited from a visit to that proverbial woodshed.

Enough trips to the woodshed with enough switches used to somehow flip a switch that changed behavior for enough of us in my generation to make the unconvertible stand out as those you wouldn’t welcome into your life.

Buy, hey. Feelings.

I don’t blame kids for misbehaving badly. I do blame adults. Especially adults who let other adults act out. Frankly, I don’t see a chance for any new undergrowth happening without that bigger woodshed and a line out the door waiting to enter.

(Image by ja-aljona on Shutterstock)

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

More Thoughts on Resilience as Our Strength and Our Weakness

The damnation of short and painful memories.

Warning. This is going to be a very long, very personal and very cynical take. A lot of this has been bubbling in my gut for far too long, and I’m tired of the taste in my mouth when it regurgitates. So I write.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece titled Resilience Is Our Strength But Also Our Weakness. The slug line for the piece was “Time to break a few things.” I stand by the title, the slug line, and the content.

That said, I’m going to write further based on a conversation generated from the piece on Mastodon with fellow Mastodonians David Todd McCarty and Denny Henke. Henke, while admiring the piece, took me to task for not offering specifics about what to tear down. He was correct. I didn’t. I’ll offer what few I think there are throughout and towards the end of this essay.

Nasty hint. I don’t think there are many. That’s one reason it’s taken me so long to think and write this essay. There are questions. Nothing I’m going to say here should come as a surprise. Anyone reading this has probably already had many of the same thoughts. If you haven’t I don’t know why you’re here.

Before I get into that, let me toss out a few links for context for anyone interested. First, take a look at McCarty’s piece linked to in my previous piece called A Quiet Truth, and also his attempt to answer Henke’s response in this piece Democratic Socialism: Keeping The Great American Experiment Alive.

I’ll also reprint Henke’s intial thoughts in his response to me below:

Great post Warner and I generally agree but you don’t offer much detail. You’re focused on the Reconstruction and the historical rooting of our current moment in the Confederacy, which I would interpret as the unresolved issues of 150ish years ago.

But shouldn’t we go back 250 years? That would seem to get us closer to the foundational problems.

Also, coming back to today and the notion of breaking things. What is it you want to break? What do you see as being the goal? And how do you see us getting there?

I’d ask the same of DTM. You both SEEM to be calling for a sort of soft revolution without really saying it. And though you both seem to be rejecting the previous normal, you’re seemingly okay with many aspects of what we had.

What level of inequality are you willing to accept or is it none? What level of general social-ecological-economic violence are you willing to accept or is it none?

Both McCarty and Henke mention my historical references to our country’s capacity for compassion and resilience in my earlier piece, specifically how we as a nation chose a path of reconciliation over one of punishment after the American Civil War. History can nag, and be both instructive and problematic. I’m not one who thinks looking past the past, or picking your past (as I did) helps tremendously, though it instructs if you pay attention. Otherwise why would the dark hearted forces that seize control keep trying to erase or change it every time the cycle swings them back into power? History doesn’t only contain a recounting of events, it contains what’s behind those events should you care to look.

We may not step foot in the same river twice, but we keep recycling the water in history’s reflecting pools.

In my view, as a species (expand for a moment those borders and blinders beyond the U.S.) we’ve more than proven that we’re incapable of the persuasion necessary to promote positive change in the grand scheme of things. We’re also incapable of enough horror to counter dark underlying forces eager to exploit., explode and yes, extinguish in their quest for power and dominion. We don’t want to be the monsters we need to counter.

It’s a doom loop humans have been caught in long before anyone reading this was born. And it’s a loop so overstuffed with doom that we want to physiologically and psychologically wipe it from our memories the moment we begin coming up for air after one catastrophe or the other. It’s amazing how we even find ways to ignore the scar tissue.

For the moment then , set aside history. Why continue to dissect it to death for no great real benefit? Set aside also discussions of racism, religious intolerance, class warfare, and all flavors of hatred of the other. More words have been written about those topics, some here, and in countless other places by countless other writers. None seeming to have any real lasting effect beyond blowing off steam on trains stalled on the tracks. Words do have meaning. Meaning meanders through the mediums and get muddled in the summaries.

Dig beneath to what in my opinion is the rotten root behind most of the ills humans continue to bring on one another. The thirst for dominion reveals dark hearts fueled with an appetite for self aggrandizement that makes the sin of gluttony feel like a mild teenage eating disorder. You can’t read a history of any civilization without finding that to be the case. Oh, shit. There’s history again.

What? Too big? Too broad a topic? Too much to tackle?

Spot on.

It is too big. Also too unsolvable. Too deep. You can erase moments of history. You can’t erase who we are. It is who we are. At least as demonstrated by a collective human history of repeating and revisiting the motivations behind the moments that stand out on the surface, that iceberg-like signal greater horrors underneath. Perhaps we’re waiting for some AI to solve it. That’s only partially a joke. Easier to laugh than accept responsibility.

Not recognizing the enormity of the larger root cause makes it far too easy to focus on what comparatively is the day-to-day (these days overwhelming) minutiae of corrupt and poisonous politics, legal morasses, greed in all forms, and debates over a constitution that has essentially been abused as much as the people it supposedly protects. Every day there’s a moment that feels crucial (it is always the most important election of our lifetime!), always feels pressing, and always ends up, in the grand scheme of things, rewarding a few while screwing over the rest. Always.

Admitting the larger problem is indeed too much, but also too much a condemnation of us all. And we generally shy away from that. Focusing on the immediate threat always and often more urgently satisfies the emotional need to rage against that which can’t be changed or controlled. And that brings me to violence.

Violence and Monsters

I’m not advocating violence. I’m not a violent person. I have resorted to it a couple of times to defend myself and loved ones. Beyond self defense, (too often a convenient excuse) I am acknowledging that violence is usually what most of what we’re experiencing evolves (devolves?) into. Not always. But usually. And usually when it counts.

Frankly, in my world view, if you’re not prepared for a violent outcome you’re being naive in the best case. In the worst, you’re just a willing victim and actually a part of the problem. Regardless, those willing to accept violence as a piece of the puzzle are at least the ones who have chance of winning each moment’s argument.

Yes, violence begats an endless cycle. One good deed may deserve another, but one bad one too often breeds many more. But without the threat of violence or punishment, power and the restriction of it is essentially meaningless.

Reiterating, I’m not advocating violence. I just think we need to be prepared for it. Frankly, I’m surprised we haven’t already seen it on a larger scale in this country in the reactions to the violence visited on us by our government. To say you’re incapable of it, means you’ve never been under serious threat, real or imagined. Reason is always preferred. Until you confront the unreasonable.

But what about the important non-violent movements throughout history? Gandhi? Martin Luther King and civil rights? Labor strikes? What about Victor Orban stepping down after being defeated in an election?

Don’t kid yourself. While non-violent organizers fighting for civil rights practiced and preached non-violence, realize in most situations they were prepared to have violence done on them. Those organizers were no fools. In too many cases throughout history (damn, there it is again) it wasn’t until things turned violent that things begin to change. The presence of cameras made a difference during the US civil rights struggles of the 1960’s. They don’t seem to do so with the same result in the 2020’s. It takes sociopaths to not blanche at the sight of bloodshed of others. It takes courage to bleed for them.

But what about Orban? Perhaps the most sensible tyrant in history. He read the writing on the wall, knew he’d already made his bundle, and had changed the structure of his country in ways that will take decades to fix and tie his opponents into knots. He got out while the getting was good. It’s a rare villain who knows to quit when he’s ahead. Or still has one. U.S. tyrant hopefuls who have been taking cues from Orban should heed his last one.

This country just quasi-celebrated its 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. If it wasn’t for a group of men willing to publicly sign their name to a document at the risk of being hung for treason, who knows what this continent would have become? Would you have signed it with your neck on the line?

Violence is being done on citizens of this country almost daily by its government, as well as on others around the world. Dark hearted monsters have more than proven their lust for it. As for the rest of us?

With the possible exception of some citizens in cities invaded by ICE, I’m not sure enough are willing to stand in the way when the guns come out. Certainly that would require sacrifice in such action. Would you be willing to make it?

The fact that ICE murders haven’t yet turned the tide is something I find hard to grasp in the same way a collective catastrophe like COVID did not. When it is easy to exploit death and destruction for selfish gain we’ve turned a corner into a very dark alley.

As twisted as all of this is, it’s also become some sort of an even more twisted spectator sport to watch the clock hopefully run out on Trump one way or the other. Allies and enemies abroad have joined in on the watching, waiting for a flashpoint or an act of God that may or may not come before too much more damage is done. Meanwhile the violence continues.

I’m not condemning anyone by saying that. I’m just acknowledging that we’re more willing spectators than we are victims watching a losing match, while somehow still trying to manage our lives, than we might believe. Much like the small folk in any Game of Thrones episode helplessly watching dragons fly overhead.

And therein lies one of my larger points.

It pisses me off when I hear criticisms about those who are too comfortable to do what it takes to change things. Certainly there are those who don’t want their comfort zones turned upside down. They deserve condemnation. But there are far too many just trying to provide for their families and get through the day-to-day. I know quite a few for whom that struggle is as all consuming as any political struggle.

It also pisses me off that those who do have enough capacity to work for change have chosen to do so so weakly. They piss me off more than those that willingly attach to the predators like remorseless remoras.

Folks may be willing to boycott a retailer, or a streaming service, or attend a weekend march for a few hours. But I don’t see any concerted actions or desire to do what the Albanians are currently doing to protest their government’s collusion with the Kushner/Trump family attempts to steal and develop a piece of that country’s shoreline. I think the Albanians have now been in the streets for longer than 40 days. That’s a long weekend that’s not short on courage.

So, as to one specific. Until a large enough portion of the population of this country is willing to stand in the streets for periods longer than a few hours on a weekend afternoon, I don’t think on the whole we’re ready for the moment, or the struggle. Those afraid of losing their comfort and those willing to enable by sitting on the sidelines don’t deserve a voice in fixing what has been broken, if or when the time comes.

The citizens of Minnesota and other cities invaded by ICE showed great resilience in the face of government violence. Tragically, it wasn’t enough. That winter furor cooled off as warmer spring temperatures crept in, though it seems to be sparking anew in the heat of the summer after similar recent government sponsored murders in Texas and Maine. I have my doubts.

It’s monstrous what’s happening. And we need to meet the monsters where they are. There’s a great theme in Emily St. John Mandel’s novel, Station Eleven, later made into a streaming series. “To the monsters, we’re the monsters” is perhaps more proverb than theme. There’s always fear on either side of a conflict. Do we need to be more monstrous?

For those who think this sounds like anarchy, you’re probably correct in the strict sense of the term. Here’s the thing. I happen to believe that active tyranny is worse than anarchy. I’m not alone in that. Anarchy is chaos without control. Active tyranny is chaos under the guise of control. That’s where we are. Both bring chaos. Both bring horror.

We’re living under active tyranny masquerading as a constitutional republic that controls too many of the world’s purse strings, constantly tilting every axis it can find, led by a decadent decaying thug, held up and held together by sniveling supplicants, none of whom know when or how to quit, or desire to. Trading one flavor of chaos for another often sounds appealing. It usually never is. Until there is no alternative.

Damnatio Memoriae

The condemnation of memory is an ancient practice of wiping the memory banks clean. The Romans get first credit for attempting to remove all instances of those no longer in favor. Rather than be faced with reminders of those unwanted, remove all instances of their likeness and wipe them from the history books. Don’t mention their names. Damnatio Memoriae resurfaces throughout history like a bad memory popping up out of nowhere, as those controlling the roads patch over the potholes created by the destruction of those who stood in their path. Sorry. History rearing its ugly head again.

I was in Russia directing an American musical when the statue of the founder of the KGB, Felix Dzerzhinksy, was removed from the square in Moscow bearing his name. Joshua Yaffa has an interesting take on the moment, the history, and its aftermath. Here’s a quote:

…in a civic culture that placed more emphasis on forgetting than remembering its more painful moments, Memorial never became part of the mainstream. In 1992, an investigation into the legality of the Communist Party’s actions ended with a whimper. There was never any formal reckoning or judgment on seventy years of Communist rule and those who carried it out.

I grew up in the South in the era when those with long memories and lingering hatreds began turning their dream of rising again into the ugly reality that has led us to where we are now. It was subtle, insidious, and largely ignored outside of the region.

The same media institutions we rightfully condemn for their capitulation today essentially did the same thing during and after the civil rights struggles in the 1960’s. Sainted as they may be for turning their cameras on the Bull Conners and the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they largely ignored the raising of statues and Civil War memorials celebrating traitors, hiding as easily as behind a hood, a politician’s platform, or the masks today’s ICE goons wear in cowardice. The media treats losing soccer coaches with more disdain than it has the legacy of losers who ripped a country apart once and are doing so again.

Politics

In Conor McPherson’s underrated musical Girl From The North Country, featuring the music of Bob Dylan, one of the characters speaking to another, his face pummeled from a boxing match, says:

Marianne: Boxing is so foolish. They say that in the bible, you know?

Scott: Yeah?

Marianne: Leviticus. Chapter 3 verse 4.

Scott: What?

Marianne: I’m making it up. You can say anything is in Leviticus.

The same is true about politics. You can say anything in politics. It’s in the bible. I’m making that up. The opposite is true and you can find it hanging on the walls of schoolhouses in some states. Irony isn’t dead, it just can’t outrun political comedy.

Built into the Constitution since its ratification, the speech and debate clause allowed members of Congress to lie through their teeth while working during attendance at sessions. It’s expanded well beyond the wells of congressional chambers, but then the constitution itself, much like the bible, expands and contracts depending on the moment, the speaker, and the number of social media followers.

One of the cardinal rule of politics is to make your opponent spend time and resources defending themselves. As to one of those specifics I left out, we don’t practice that skill enough. The monsters do. We do not. We need to.

Call me crazy, but as the Democratic Party searches in vain to try and grab a coherent message, their consultant driven attempts keep missing the mark against opponents tossing slop at them from the gutter. If you didn’t want to wrestle the pig on his home turf, you should have never gotten into politics.

The consultants want to call the intersection where the right and left meet a horseshoe. It’s actually a circle. But closing that gap rhetorically might just mean making those who hate each other for different reasons find too many similarities to make the comfortable classes uncomfortable, and put the consultant class out of work.

To me, there is only one message that should be leveled in any and all attacks. “You want the shootings in our streets to stop? You want health care? You want to afford a living for you and your family? You want an expanded Supreme Court? You want..(fill in the blank with any other issue currently sizzling on the hot plate)? Then first you have to vote these criminals and cowards out of office.”

If you’re not calling them a criminal and a coward every time you speak, in exactly those terms, you’re missing the moment. And if your candidate refuses to do so, find another one who will.

I hate to say it about myself, but I look several family members in their face on Zoom calls and bluntly say, “when you stop supporting pedophiles, rapists, and criminals, then we’ll talk.” I hate being brought to that place. It’s damn painful. But here we are.

The dark hearted monsters have made sure there is no longer a middle road. We need to quit looking for one. Stop also looking for the high road. Everyone is in the same ditch. Don’t debate nonsense. Don’t try to reason with the unreasonable. If your compassionate muscle begins to twitch, exercise it in support of those who literally find it hard to manage through a day or a week, and can’t find the time or energy for anything else.

Henke asked me “What level of inequality am I willing to accept, or is it none?” I’d love to say it was none, but that would be naive. Like Thomas More I don’t think there could ever be a Utopia. There is always going to be inequality. Thinking equality for everyone is a fiction that can really only be achieved from a perch above those you want to help. There’s irony in there somewhere.

The question isn’t what level of inequality would you accept, the question is what levels of support for those on the lower rungs of the ladder are you willing to pay for.

For some, politics may be about creating equality, opportunity, or possibility. We like to hear that. Some desperately want to believe that. And yes, laws do matter. But laws can be undone. More swiftly than they can be created. Laws can be evil. Slavery was legal. Laws can be ignored. But at its root, politics is, and always was, about dividing up what resources are available or finding new ones when those run out. If you think it’s about anything else, you’re wrong.

More Specifics and Breaking Things

I promised to list some specifics beyond the few sprinkled above. And here you go.

As to the upcoming elections.

Pay Attention: There are no secrets. We’re told and we see daily what the plans are. If you dismiss them as the ravings of a lunatic, you’re wrong. Pay attention.

Vote. The only way to defend the right to vote is to vote. That sounds easy and trite. I don’t think it will be for some this year. Whatever obstacles (and there are quite a few) that the president has declared he wants to throw in your path need to be overcome. Voting is going to be more of an act of defiance than it has ever been.

Organize. Yes, it helps. But it only helps if you do so strategically with the simple goal of tossing the bums out. Everything else is secondary. Certainly if we lose.

Be ready to protest after the election and whatever bullshit the coward and criminal-in-chief tries to pull to keep himself in power and out of jail. The largest mistake we made after the 2024 election was staying in shock and not causing trouble in the immediate aftermath. We allowed the criminals the time to carry out the plans they had made very public for all to see. None of what we are seeing should be a surprise. If it is or was, you weren’t paying attention.

Sharpen your steel. The steel in your spine. Know you’re already under attack and know what you stand for or don’t. Know what you’re willing to compromise on and what you’re willing to sacrifice and what you’re not. That won’t be easy. It never is.

Call and write your representatives. Or visit their local offices. Certainly call and write them on an issue and how you feel about it. But let whomever answers the phone or greets you at reception that your support stops depending on how they fight. More importantly tell them straight up that if they want a donation they have to ask in person and be prepared to stand accountable. Remind them that the country you want them to fight for was birthed by a minority who pledged it all and that you expect them to do the same.

Write. Not just on social media. Not just your representatives. Not just on the Internet. Write your friends. Write your family. Write the CEOs of companies you do business with. Turn your mind into one that isn’t afraid to make waves. Let whomever you write know that you hold them responsible as the ones that broke the dam and caused the damage. Put them on the defensive. If they are going to tell you to get lost, they are already lost to you. Don’t try to reason with the unreasonable. Write them off and let them know you’ve done so.

As to breaking things.

The only reason the president hasn’t declared some sort of state of emergency and taken complete control is it would bring political fundraising to a halt. Not just for him. He doesn’t need it while he sits in office and collects the bribes that spill over his desk like golden showers. But it would end most political fundraising for the rest of the hangers on and lickspittles. That of course would be a blow to the media as well, because that’s where the dollars raised mostly go after the consultants take their cut.

I have no doubt in my mind that Trump will do some such action either before or after the election. At that point the money will have already been raised and spent and it’s one of the few gambits he has left.

“Things” are already broken. Congress. The Courts. The Justice Department. The Constitution. The economy. Global alliances. The list is too long before you even get to the defacing destruction of Washington DC and the White House.

I’m reminded of when now senator Mark Warner was elected governor of Virginia in 2002. (Sorry, not sorry, but it’s another history moment.) He came to power to discover that the Republican Party had been essentially cooking the books. Warner had to scale back some of his plans to put the state’s finances back together. It wasn’t easy. But he largely succeeded by setting aside some of his promised priorities.

That pales in comparison to what whomever is elected in 2028 will face, or assuming the democrats come back into the majority in Congress after the midterms.

Like Orban’s Hungary, so much is broken it is going to take years if not generations to restore. I’d suggest restoration shouldn’t be the goal. Neither should reconciliation.

Sure, we’d all like to see some of the physical manifestations of Trump’s classless remodeling of the capital city and other places torn down and ripped asunder. That would probably feel good, and provide a cathartic cleansing. A symbolic, yet perhaps necessary one. But we should never attempt to erase the memory of what we’re living through. Don’t damn the memory, damn those who created them and forever remember their evil. At least for seventy or 80 years or so. That seems to be our capacity.

Certainly we’d like to see many of these barbarians sent to jail for their crimes. If we don’t, forget about the current system of laws that they’ve already spit on and torn asunder. The criminals have. We should too.

The harder work will be in closing the holes that our constitutional republic has left open that let this madman run through and over. Those holes exist because the founding fathers believed in honor, checks and balances, and to some extent the will of the people. This decade has more than proven that we don’t care so much about honor, much less checks and balances or the will of the people.

Break what’s left, and I’d suggest taking advantage of the opportunity to make something new. If it requires a constitutional convention, do it. If it requires being more monstrous to meet the monsters where they are, do so. It can’t be any messier or more dangerous than things stand now.

I’ll close with something I post on social media twice a week.

Act like it.

(Image from Halinskyi Max on Shutterstock)

Sunday Morning Reading

Words, words, words…

Meaning. It means so much. So do the words that deliver it to us. But remember, there was meaning before we constructed words into language. This week’s Sunday Morning Reading comes on the final day of a weird and wacky 4th of July weekend in the U.S when an often mean Mother Nature reminded us who is really in control no matter which words we choose or manipulate to pretend we are. It was kinda fun to watch. There’s also a few interesting pieces about America’s founding, and the myths and the meaning behind it all.

Kicking it off is a short piece from JA Westenberg asking Remember When Words Had Meaning? What comes first the distortion of language or the devaluing of the culture that employs them?

Speaking of meaning, Jack Loftus gives us The U.S. Constitution Is For Simple Folk Still Burdened By The Belief That Words Have Meaning. You can argue it was always thus, but we sure do spend an awful amount of time, energy and money arguing the opposite.

In this age of WTF, it has become an accelerating trend to see pieces disemboweling many of the myths we assign to the founding of America around the 4th of July. We used to share common myths more than we did a common history, but now even the myths get mangled. So it’s no surprise when the powers that currently be toil to rewrite both. Noah Berlatsky‘s The Constitution Sucks is a good example of how we can forever flip the coin looking for the right result, ignoring the edge.

T.H. Breen takes a look at some of the too often un-heralded folks and local movements during America’s revolutionary war period in It Wasn’t Just The Founders.

John Warner offers up For The Fourth, 9 Books For Your Sense Of Patriotism, saying “I’ve come to (personally) understand patriotism as a not a fan-like allegiance to a team, but a responsibility to understand the country’s history, warts and all as we pursue the illusive promise of life, liberty and happiness for all from the Declaration.” The key is knowing we all “come” to understanding.

Will Frivolous Charges Be Brought Against Future Ex-POTUSes? That’s Okay Too by Josh Marshall offers up an excellent piece on how we can twist and morph words in a legal context that shift the ground under most mythical mountains like “no man is above the law. “

Speaking of words and meaning, the bad guys seeking to survive a legal onslaught ahead of what they fear is a political tsunami coming for them are trying to rekindle old fears about communism and socialism as their latest talking points. Not sure those old saws will cut the same way they used to, but it demonstrates just how limited the dictionary is. David Todd McCarty takes a look behind the hooting and hollering in Democratic Socialism: Keeping The Great American Experiment Alive.

And in a quasi-hysterical look at shifting meanings and changing words, Rogé Karma is wondering Why Everyone Is Suddenly Talking About ‘Universal Basic Capital’. The quasi-hysterical part is that it’s coming from the AI market masters and a few politicians substituting the word “capital” for “income” following the words “universal basic.” Language is hard. When you can say anything to get what you want.

And in another word substitution, Doc Searls suggests we shift from an “attention economy” to an “intention economy.” Check out The First Source Of Personal Intent. I’m not sure the meaning changes with the substitution.

(Image from Alexandra on Unsplash)

Thoughts Swirling On This 4th of July

Celebrate who we want to be, not who dark hearts keep reminding us we are.

The 4th of July hasn’t felt the same to me in quite some time. The country I was born in doesn’t feel the same as it once did. Yet it does. In ways I wish I could ignore. Those are obvious observations many share, I’m sure. To me they are painful ones. Very painful.

I’m not one who ever believed that this country (or any country), given the way governments and people work, was divinely founded or inspired to do what is right. Humankind is too arrogant, too selfish, and too human to think that doesn’t spill over into governing and social intercourse any more or less so than it does into any other field of endeavor. The American musicalized version of our founding is indeed powerful and seductive, but it mostly hides the sour notes, even if at times it reveals truths it often obscures.

In this last decade plus it’s become excruciating to watch centuries-old hatreds arise from wounds once thought closed and healed, unleashed by a madman able to turn others just as mad. Insidious infections have popped through the surface and festered anew, revealing that far too many have no understanding of or desire to understand the bonds we share as humans on a rock orbiting a star, divided by arbitrary borders and divisions, assuming we can somehow control the chaos we continue to create.

Yes, the Declaration of Independence broke new ground in humankind’s advance, but in our current moment, it’s challenging, bordering on disingenuous, to say it altered the course of its continuing evolution.

For those who say that this 4th of July is for celebrating our 250th anniversary as a country, I’d offer this. Kinda yes, mostly no.

The years before and immediately following the Declaration proved just how close we came to not seeing those grievances become more than bold and dangerous statements on a piece of parchment. Yes, we won the American Revolution that sprung from the Declaration. But there were as many on this continent who were quite content to remain under the rule of a king, as those who revolted against it.

The men who wrote and signed that document were willing to hang for their actions. I don’t see too many (or enough) willing to do the same today.

In the 250 years since, we’ve had other close runs at seeing it all rent asunder. The Declaration in and of itself opened a door, it didn’t build as firm a foundation as many thought and hoped, or a country. That came later.

We’re living through another close run at tearing it all down, somehow finding too many of our fellow citizens content, as many of their forbearers were, to putting their lives in the hands of a king-like ruler once again. It will take decades to overcome this era, not because rulings and laws can’t be changed. They can. Surprisingly we’re finding they are also easy enough to ignore. We’ve given new life to dark and sickened hearts that will poison not only themselves and that which they touch, but the generation or two that comes after them.

The Declaration of Independence and the country that came after were never perfect. Proving that neither are we, neither are those who preceded us, and neither will be those who will succeed us. It was actually an acknowledgment of humankind’s imperfections. It was a promise, and it was a start, following a shot heard round the world. We’re still running the race that shot started, against the same headwinds of our own making, the promise still unfulfilled.

The act of reaching the Declaration of Independence is indeed worth celebrating, even if we keep extending the play by adding repetitive acts that keep rehashing the same plot points that made it necessary.

The 4th of July is also worth celebrating for all of the Americans, past and present, who think it is still worth pushing back against those who don’t care for what it has meant, flawed in its creation or no, and only see in its imperfections and the constitution that followed years later, other tools for self aggrandizement and enrichment.

Celebrate who we want to be, not who dark hearts keep reminding us we are. Castigation is all they deserve.

Resilience Is Our Strength But Also Our Weakness

Time to break a few things

There are two big conversations popping around the political universe these days. Both seem to miss not only the larger point, but the stakes.

The first is how the Democratic Party is trying to still figure out what it wants to be in the wake of progressive victories in recent primaries. The centrists are appalled. The progressives are ecstatic. The people are pissed off. The politicians are clueless. This post isn’t really about that fight, only to say that it provides some context to the second.

The second conversation takes place on the larger battleground heading into the midterms and beyond. No, that’s not the inevitable mud fight between what was once the Republican Party and the clueless Democrats. It’s yet another intra-party scrap on the Dem side.

There are those who think we need to restore to what we had before. Achieve some sort of balance again. There are those, like me, that think playing that game is not only equally clueless, but is trying to pretend we can put all of the dismantling and destruction aside and find some sort of way forward in some semblance of what we used to call unity. As I said, I’m not buying into that myth. Reconstruction didn’t work the first time around. It won’t this time either.

The reconstruction and balance crowd makes a sadly profound observation about the electorate. As pissed off as most people are, the movers and shakers are counting on the resilience of the American people. Sad fact, the bad guys now in power and trying to desperately hang on to it out of fear of retribution, continue to count on that same resilience.

Resilience doesn’t always mean a stiffer spine. Many times it means hanging in and taking care of the immediate business of living day to day. When that daily struggle is the focus, it’s no surprise the bigger picture gets lost, or muddled up over passionate issues that in the larger scheme of things mean less than those that take advantage of them push like dope.

Yes, we are a resilient people. We can withstand a lot. But that resilience also makes us far too compliant, hoping that the next election, or some court decision will change things the way they always have in American politics. Those legal and civilized ways of bringing change have often, albeit slowly worked, but we’re finding that given everything that is broken, those same legal and civilized tools can be used to quash that progress at a quicker pace.

While we haven’t yet launched into a full-blown shooting Civil War, the damage that has been done since the Confederacy rose again and took over the federal government under the leadership of a Queens, New York conman and pedophile (something that strikes me as ironic and on the surface just damn funny) is in many ways just as damaging as was the end of the first Civil War, if not more so, because many of the institutions and norms that helped the Union survive have been and continue to be dismantled.

At the conclusion of that war in 1865 there was a great debate about how to handle the states and its leaders that formed the Confederacy. One side wanted retribution and punishment, the other not so much. Equal to our resilience is our capacity for compassion and our compunction to think that dark hearts can be changed. The compassionate side largely won out in an attempt to heal the nation’s wounds. Sad to say, here we are again.

The difference this time around is that on top of the fight for freedom, civil rights, and equality, we’re fighting a government that’s largely owned by a handful of billionaires. Many of which were on the other side of things not too long ago. Money talks and bullshit walks. They’ve largely made their haul, so the only reason I can see for them to continue what they’r doing is they’re also afraid of retribution.

In a brief conversation earlier today with friend David Todd McCarty after reading a new piece of his called The Quiet Truth, I remarked that his citing of the quote from Confucius about a willow that bends being stronger than the mighty oak that breaks in the storm, got me thinking. Those willows are indeed resilient. That same story appears in many cultures, proving its own resilience. But I’ve come to believe the only way out of this mess we’ve allowed ourselves to be in is going to require some breakage. Breakage that must require building something new, not restoring the old.

We made that mistake after the American Civil War. The country literally broke in two. In attempting to heal it, we proved our resilience as a people, but unfortunately left two many places for the losers to hide and lurk in the resilient reeds. They have resurfaced a few times since in our history, but have always been beaten back. Each time accepted back into the fold with that same practical compassion and resilience.

They’ve been openly enjoying breaking things. We might not enjoy it, but we need to break a few things with equal desperation and energy, before too much more is broken.

(Image from Halinskyi Max on Shutterstock)

Sunday Morning Reading

Searching for normal in abnormal places

Time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. Sharing good writing is a normal thing to do. Maybe that’s abnormal. Don’t know. Don’t care. Defining normal is a tricky subjective thing. But then trying to define most things these days feels, well…almsot abnormal.

Just be normal. Is that a “new normal” or last week’s “old normal?” Do we crave normality? Does it matter? Normally, I’d have more to say, but instead check out JA Westenberg’s Just Be Normal About Things.

Mathew Ingram takes on the subject of consciousness, one of the latest discussions bopping around the bits and bytes surrounding AI, with his piece, Is Atlantic Writer Ted Chiang Conscious? How Do We Know? If you ask me, that fact that this is being discussed calls whatever the idea of consciousness is into question. Doesn’t feel normal. For that matter doesn’t feel abnormal either. Just weird.

Mike Masnick states the obvious in CEOs Who Think AI Replaces Their Employees Are Just Bad CEOs.

David Todd McCarty calls his piece The Slow News Moment. I like his description better. “How we became terrorized by the 24-hour news cycle and what we might do to combat the charade of exigency.” Perhaps less is more normal.

“We are being robbed by the worst people in the world,” says Kelly Hayes in The Heist State. Spot on, given that blatant thievery is the new normal these days.

Everywhere you look life is a scam. That is indeed far too normal. Neil Steinberg takes on one that targeted him and other writers in We Love Your Book! Now Give Us Money. Funny stuff.

Protect The Weird, Slow and Inefficient. Natasha MH thinks AI might one day become as invisible a tool to the process of writing as the typewriter did in its day. But look again. The tools don’t matter as much as the desire.

(Image from Justin Simmonds on Unsplash.)

Trump’s Name Finally Comes Off The Kennedy Center

May his named be erased from so much more.

Well, that happened. Finally. Trump’s desecrating name was finally removed from The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a judge ruled to make it so.

Photo of worker removing Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center by AP photographer Cliff Owen

It took a while, thanks to some legal cry-babying from Trump’s legal bunglers trying to soothe his injured and fragile ego. The act didn’t quite meet the June 12th deadline, but eventually under the cover of darkness and behind a curtain, the name came down after the public, via live streams on the Internet, got lessons in erecting scaffolding. The photo above was captured by Cliff Owen of the Associated Press and so far is the only one I’ve seen with a worker’s hands removing one of the letters.

The Kennedy Center has told the judge that all references to name have been removed from the building, website, and printed materials.

Of course the pedophile-in-chief’s name should have never been put there in the first place. It was a perversion. The removal is a small victory. Even if largely symbolic in a wellspring of atrocities. There’s no telling how long it will take to rebuild the damage he’s done to the Kennedy Center as an institution and the rest of what he’s destroyed.

But it is a bright moment in all of the darkness and hopefully breeds more anger and anticipation for ripping to shreds any of the other atrocious marks this less than human, but very real human monstrosity has visited on all of us.

The facade certainly looks better.

As Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times reminds us:

I want to live long enough to dance in the street when that happens. Let there be bonfires to light the night skies.

Update: The photo above of the facade with Trump’s name removed is from pre-Trump days. Apparently the tarp that covered the removal is still there and may be for some time.

The Kennedy Center Saga Continues

A glimpse of hope for the future

With so many things fundamentally broken during this second Trump administration there’s a momentary sigh of relief when it appears that something, anything might be put back together again.

This week U.S.District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Trump’s appointed Kennedy Center board exceeded its authority when they decided to slap Trump’s name on the building and remake the building in his imagined image. Taking a look at any photo of the remade Oval Office and the plans for his ballroom, his gigantic arch, and the wrestling ring he’s built for his birthday beat down, which he somehow likens to the Eiffel Tower, is enough to make anyone with any semblance of taste in their mouth spit in disgust.

The ruling essentially says stop and take the offensive name off of the building. The Kennedy Center administration has already ordered employees to remove the sign and also strip all references from other signage, brochures, the website and to remove email signatures and letterhead by June 12th. The move is being hailed as a victory.

Cathartic and symbolic as removing the name may be, it can’t possibly make up for the damage done to the revered national center for the arts. It’s a start, and it certainly kindles hopes and dreams of doing the same to much of the defacing and defecating this one man wrecking crew has visited on Washington DC and the rest of the country.

Take for example the story of the National Symphony Orchestra. After many acts and organizations cut ties with the Kennedy Center rather than being associated with the madness, Trump closed the Kennedy Center for a two-year period of renovations, leaving the NSO without a home. Ben Folds, previous artistic advisor, (previous only because he stepped down when Trump took over), has released a letter calling for an “outpouring of public support.” Saying without such a push the NSO may not survive. You can read the full letter at this Instagram link. That will be a hard task and I wish them success.

I’ve said ever since Donald Trump came on the political scene that given the grifter and sexual predator’s previous life as a real estate developer we needed to understand that in order to construct something new a developer in his/her heart needed to also love demolishing something first. He’s certainly more than demonstrated a penchant for demolition and desecrating.

Here’s hoping one day we all get a chance to enjoying demolishing the things he’s touched in this horrible age.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

The Emperor’s New Car Wreck

A recycled, decaying spectacle

Once upon a time there was a guy named Hans Christian Anderson who wrote a story about an emperor who was exposed (literally) by his own vanity. We’re living that now here in the U.S. I’m actually amazed that this administration hasn’t banned every copy of The Emperor’s New Clothes, but it’s possible it’s above most of their reading levels.

The emperors new clothes.BltLFigK_Z2aBtTL.

Nothing ever really changes, it just gets recycled. Anderson’s story was actually based on others from Aesop to Persian folktales. So even within the frame we used to think of as American exceptionalism, we can’t claim this farce as our own. It’s like a virus or a comet that comes along every now and then. Or watching a car wreck. Or a train. Perhaps a space ship explode on a launch platform.

Regardless, I do think we’ll probably be able to claim the worst version of the story when this one does come to an end.

It’s more than obvious that Trump and his sloppy lickspittle sycophants can’t run a country, a war, an economy, or apparently not even a big 250th celebration of America’s founding without making a fool of themselves while they dig deeper holes for the rest of us. Small hint: you just need lots of fireworks and a military band. As long as the members meet the height and weight requirements.

They’re good at grifting and making money. For themselves. Apparently there are still enough suckers out there willing to pony up. That’s the only surprising part of our version. Although some who’ve seen enough are looking for new digs in Argentina. I’m guessing the real estate market there will see boom times as others follow. As long as the data centers don’t get there first.

The sinking spectacle is so obvious that it feels like most have started to ignore the water rising around their ankles, hoping they develop webbing between their toes. Those still shocked seem to be adopting a wait it out attitude. That makes some sense. There’s nothing really to be done until he’s no longer on the planet. Although I do have my doubts that his courtiers will even announce that he’s gone once he passes, out of fear for their own lives. We might even get a new definition of what death is. We’ll all be living through a Death of Stalin moment. Which is a shame because that movie was actually a good one. And funny. Watch it and see that part of our future.

Or just read The Emperor’s New Clothes. Not for anything new. There’s no insight to be gleaned with your eyes shut or turned away from what we’re seeing. But it’s better than watching the literal decay displayed daily on some screen or the other.

One day there’s going to be a large cleanup on aisle six. It will probably be as messy as it is glorious.