‘Worst attack on democracy’ continues still

     President Joe Biden spoke for over an hour Wednesday in his first address to a joint session of Congress, raising urgent issues from the need to get Americans vaccinated to the jobs that will be created fighting climate change to the key role immigration has always played in the American story.

     But 10 words the president said early in his speech were particularly accurate and alarming, when he referred to the Jan. 6 insurrection as ”the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
     It had to be said plainly because the bulk of the Republican Party, deformed and unrecognizable after five years of rolling like puppies at the feet of Donald Trump, still does not accept reality. Polls show 70% of Republicans believe the Big Lie that the election was stolen, despite a complete lack of evidence. Half believe the Jan. 6 insurrection against our democracy was committed not by Trump supporters whipped into a frenzy, but by Democrats — Black Lives Matter activists in whiteface, perhaps — ”trying to make Trump look bad.” As if he needs help.
     ”The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” It must be repeated because of the shocking resilience of right-wing extremism. Indeed, Trump apologists zeroed in on these specific words for their typical hoots of incomprehension and ridicule. Yet it is literally a matter of life or death, our nation’s and theirs. Trump’s toxic distortion of masculinity that allowed him to grope women and pretend he is always right and always wins also made him reject wearing masks and vaccines — he got his in secret. Millions of Americans listened to him, causing hundreds of thousands to die. Millions still listen, meaning hundreds of thousands more will die. Following him into their graves, literally.
     No one can be glad of that. It’s tragic and horrible. But I’m not writing to try and jar them from their error. That’s futile. Those who do not form their positions through reason cannot be argued out of them by reason.

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Joe Biden calls sedition by its name.

     "The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War." 

     President Joe Biden said many important, noteworthy and inspirational things Wednesday night in his first State of the Union message before a pared down, socially-distant joint session of Congress.  He called for "hope over fear, truth over lies" and laid out a range of vital, blue collar, bread-and-butter initiatives, noting "doing nothing is not an option." He said that the "sacred right to vote" is under attack and called for its defense.

     An impressive, powerful, pitch perfect speech, realistic in addressing our problems, concrete in solutions offered, optimistic in tone.
     But this sentence, one of the very first things he said, echoed throughout the speech, for being simply true. With all the spin, the equivocation, fabrication and outright delusion that has been going on in our country since Jan. 6 and before, those 10 words, "The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War," have the undeniable judgment of history upon them that no amount of sneering and whataboutism and denial will efface. Donald Trump was a traitor who colluded with our enemies and goaded the mob to try to overthrow our democracy to keep himself in power, aided by a ragtag band of power-hungry henchmen and underlings, and cheered on by an army of dupes and seditionists. That was obvious Jan. 6, it is widely-known now and will be the simple summation of history onward into the future forever. Whether you agree or not does not affect the truth of the matter. A sad and solemn assessment, yet it was still good to hear President Biden say it aloud, on the very spot where the clown insurrection took place, where the deluded had their awful carnival and shat upon everything that our country represents while calling themselves patriots. The truth will out.

An unexpected bonus for the shorter man

     Over the past year, I’ve worn a coat and tie exactly once. The incoming director general of the Taiwanese economic and cultural office in Chicago wanted to get acquainted over a Zoom call. I knew he’d be wearing a coat and tie, and didn’t want to be disrespectful: they’ve got enough of that coming from communist China already.
     It was, as they say in diplomatic circles, a frank and productive exchange of ideas.
     A few minutes before we spoke, I stood before the mirror in the bedroom, fingers fluttering at the necktie — blue, not red, for obvious reasons. I wondered if I’d remember how to tie it. But I’ve been tying neckties since 1974, when I played the Mr. Darling/Captain Hook role in “Peter Pan” at Camp Wise and had to tie a tie onstage while delivering lines. You don’t forget.
     The COVID-19 era was pants optional, business conducted from your living room. Now, with the non-wackadoodle segment of the country getting vaccinated, and beginning to emerge from our long hibernation, the question is: Are we going to start dressing up? Or go to work in sweats? Or even buy new clothes? Those with a dog in the race are optimistic.
     “The courts aren’t open, there’s no theater, no trade shows, the financial institutions are all still closed,” said Scott Shapiro, owner of Syd Jerome, the high-end Loop men’s clothing store, which has had plywood over its windows since August.
     “There’s no reason to put displays in the windows because nobody is walking by,” said Shapiro.
     Even without mannequins displaying cashmere sweaters and Italian belts, “our customers are slowly coming back.” A certain Chicago milieu is always going to look sharp.

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Enigmatic bean bag

 

     Last Friday I go downtown. My wife wants to stop by her office and pick up a few things, so I figured, go with her, keep her company, and stop by mine. What in spring 2020 was an obligation has become, by spring 2021, an outing.
      So I drop her off at the Thompson Center, park on Madison, enter the building for the first time in months, say hello to the guard, chat with the two colleagues who are also there—Jeff from IT, and John on the copy desk. Go into my office and start in on my pile of mail, begin listening to my 100 or so voicemails, 90 or so from the same guy. Give up that quickly.
     Before I leave, I made a pit stop, and there I see it. How long has it been there? Not last Christmas, certainly. Maybe the Christmas before, we had a Christmas party. There was good food from local restaurants, fancy drinks and games, such as cornhole. I assume everyone is familiar with cornhole, a sort of shuffleboard where you toss beanbags onto an inclined board. You get a point for landing a beanbag on the board and three points if it goes into the hole. Fun for picnics and parties. I played a few rounds—how could you not?
    I'd have never thought of it again. But afterward, whenever I walked down that hall, I noticed this one blue bean bag that must have been left behind. It was a pleasant reminder of the party—some years we didn't have parties—and I always sort of smiled at it. There's something friendly about a bean bag. Now that I think of it, maybe it wasn't from 2019. Maybe it was from 2018. Or even before. Time all blends together at this point.
     This isn't a criticism of the sanitation of the place. It's always clean. But somehow, in its cleaning, the bean bag remains. I assume that has to be intentional, and therein lies the mystery. An in-joke of some sort? A statement? Some ghost-in-the-machine cleaning in the wee hours, deftly detouring around it, a slight jog of the broom, an act of mercy, the way you'll pity a missing sock?
     I'm not sure I want to know. There must be some prosaic reason nowhere near the limits of imagination (the bean bag....thrown away of course ... stirs, and begins its arduous nightly climb out of the trash, ruffling through the papers, reaching the lip of the can and toppling out with a beany plop, slowly, determinedly crawling, expanding and contracting like a caterpillar, back toward its Beloved Spot...)
     One of those Office Mysteries that make going into work in a place appealing. Back when we, you know, all went someplace to work.

Both facts and fact-checking a threat to GOP

 

      Republican junk jams my spam email file, scores of panting messages every day. A quick sample: “Biden Threatens War With Russia” and “Exposed: Biden’s Plot To Crush Gun Owners” and “FIRE Fauci.”
     Almost every communication ends with a plea for cash, all hyperventilating with the frantic, the-house-on-fire-save-the-baby! hysteria that is the official GOP tone: cry doom and rattle the cup. To be fair, Democrats do it, too, though I don’t get nearly as many. I’m not sure why.
     Maybe the same trolls who sign me up for fringe gun nut groups under the mistaken notion it bothers me also donate in my name to Republican candidates. Maybe the emails are sent to every known address including mine. Who can say?
     I usually never click on them or even read the subject line. There are too many. But I do sometimes open the spam file to take a peek before deleting everything, like someone glancing into the toilet bowl before flushing.
     Occasionally, something catches my attention, such the subject line, “My family’s story is being fact-checked?!” from U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), who will give the GOP response to President Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress April 28.
     Fact-checking is a good thing in the world of the mainstream media. But then again, so are facts. The idea that fact-checking would be used as a cry of grievance is like someone shouting out a window, “Help me, my kitchen is being cleaned!” It certainly is intriguing.
     The email from Scott, the only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, begins:
     “The mainstream media has decided to fact-check my family’s story of ‘cotton to Congress in one lifetime.’ That’s right, The Washington Post has been investigating my family’s history in the South and downplaying the struggles and racism they faced. It’s shameful. Plain and simple.”

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Bat out of hell

    Jim Steinman died in Connecticut Monday, and that evening I held my own little tribute, and didn't even know it.
     I walk the dog three times a day. In the morning, I often listen to a podcast, something like Molly Jong-Fast's "The New Abnormal." In the afternoon, usually Audible, this week George Saunders' "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline." 
     But by evening a little music is often called for. For some reason, Monday, I felt nostalgic, so listened to a few cuts from Elton John's "Blue Moves." 

    "On a bench, on a beach, just before the sun had gone, I tried to reach you..." 

Bernie Taupin could pen a lyric.
     Then I listened to "Bat out of Hell," all 10 minutes of it. I remember when the album came out in 1977, in the fall of my senior year of high school. The title song was written for 17-year-olds, and it summed up my entire worldview at that point. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, but I sure as hell wasn't going to do it in Berea, Ohio.
     The album had memorable cover art—a pumped-up romance novel cover hero bursting out of a graveyard on an apocalyptic motorcycle. It was produced by Todd Rundgren, who thought the whole thing a hilarious parody of Bruce Springsteen. It kinda was, and a few members of the E Street Band, Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg, actually play on the album.    
     Around that time, Meat Loaf appeared on Saturday Night Life, looking like the the bloated corpse of Elvis, stringy wet hair in his face, drown in sweat, holding a scarf, eyes crazy. I can't say I was a fan, as such. He was weird.
     And no, the New York Times never referred to him as "Mr. Loaf" on second reference. That's a myth. I checked.
     Steinman played piano on the song, and wrote a number of other standards that are big and dramatic and hold up—Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," sort of the distaff version of "Bat Out of Hell," fate conquered, not through escape, but by powering past confusion into love. "I don't know what to do, I'm always in the dark, living in a powder keg and giving off sparks..."
     "Bat Out of Hell" came to its götterdämmerung conclusion just as Kitty and I padded down the darkened Center Avenue toward our big old house, lit up like a cruise ship. I idly mused that there would be no "bat out of hell" escape for me now. I don't want it, and couldn't figure out how to achieve one even if I did. There's no need; I fled home once, and found this, everything I was ever looking for, and more. With the help of that song. So thanks Jim. Rest in peace.

Texas notes: Salut

     Friday morning I had to head downtown, so I thought to save time by having a Soylent for breakfast. Soylent is basically Ensure for young people. Then I read this report from Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey, which resonated even more personally than most.

     Ambience is everything. An ex once told me “your life can be a French movie if you want it to be.” That was some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. I like to stage my home with Amelie’s eye (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/amelie-2001)— vases full of unwieldy, bright wildflowers, Debussy, Peter Sarstedt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBaDUzFdGc8) or Vocalo Radio playing softly in the background, lamps that cast tawny shadows on wooden walls. Carefully chosen art that brings you straight into other dimensions— some have symbols of ancient archetypal knowing, another is bright and energizing and will sweep you away to a Chinese sunset if you let it. There are various flutes resting on shelves and a music stand with swirling and sophisticated bass and treble clefs boldly stamped upon sheet music.
     Art, music, certain aromas and other forms of beauty open our minds, soothe our souls, and bring us into moments of sublime peace. Good art should not be relegated to museums. There’s no reason for bad art to be out there at all. Why are we forced to gaze upon flat and boring prints from generic mega-stores when we sit in a waiting room? Why do we have so many unattractive places all around us? Je ne sais pas.
     Why do hospitals, for example, have garish fluorescent lights that make even a healthy person look gray and sickly? As if the cold concrete structures weren’t bad enough, they have to torture us further. I’m convinced that there is a special breed of designer with a knack for choosing furniture and paint colors that won “World’s Worst” somewhere along the way.
     The food is usually pretty disgusting too, and does not scream nourishment. Who ever decided that Ensure was a good idea? Ah yes. The same marketers that pepper our environment with horrid signage outside of strips of malls.  Better yet? Just go inside and find some cheap plastic garbage that we buy for $1 and eventually toss into landfills.
     After decades of working in hospitals I still cringe at the sight of a can of Ensure. It doesn’t take an Ivy League educated person to tell you there have to be better options. I turned to my trusty pal Google: “Supplemental nutrition shakes contain more than just healthy ingredients. ‘You may be getting more sugar than any of the other ingredients,’ says Stacey Nelson, a dietitian from Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.” https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/supplemental-nutrition-drinks-help-or-hype
     This is America. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY) We do so many things that seem obviously wrong, yet the powers that be are 100% committed to maintaining the status quo, no matter how broken it is.
     We are stuck in ruts around how to take care of our most vulnerable members. Many school systems are broken beyond repair, yet we keep chugging along, printing outdated textbooks. We squeeze the creativity out of our brightest and best young minds with time-outs rather than the time-ins they are craving. We are obsessed with medicating kids rather than finding creative ways to engage them and help them succeed. If they are living in households where their parents are vegging out to bad TV and no one is helping them cultivate their own inner beauty, how are they expected to show up at school with the grace, curiosity and self discipline teachers desire? Are the teachers numb too? Sometimes.
     We also do the opposite of what should be happening with those slipping into dementia. This article reminds me of the fact that we can do things better. “We have shown that it is a useful tool for arguing that segregation, in the form of care homes, of people living with dementia is a human rights violation. This article provides a basis on which to engage policymakers and dementia care stakeholders in reconsidering ‘self-evident’ and taken-for-granted structural conditions of aged care systems and material aspects of the residential aged care facility built environment that shape the lives of people with dementia.” (https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/8/3/18)
     Once again, with a move coming up in 7 days and a lot on my mind, I have gone on about something I didn’t intend to write about. My original topic was going to be the Salons of better days gone by. Poetry readings under a spotlight in the desert. Talented musicians bringing their gifts to us. Playing, dancing, singing. I will share those stories another time.
     Here is some unsolicited advice I do my best to take for myself. Remember to place objects of beauty all around you. They don’t have to be expensive. An oil painting from Goodwill will suffice. Diffuse tangerine and lavender into your space, or spray lavender mist around the room and on your pillows. Fill your place with plants. Talk to them. They will thrive and you will too. Notice the sounds around you. Notice how what you are listening to and watching makes you feel. Infuse each day with silence. As I write this I hear the ticking of my analog clock and slow raindrops beating on the roof. Savor moments more often. Chew and taste your food. Walk more slowly, talk more slowly. Be mindful, and little by little, as you hone yourself you’ll see that this world is actually pretty wonderful. And there’s always hope that certain things will get better.