1113

 Sunday, November 13, 2022

In bed around 9, awake off and on until up at 4:30, several pss, no vino. 26  degrees out, NW wind at 10, wind chill 26, high of 37. Winter.

Happy Horseshit

 On July 9, 1965,I flew in the belly of a C130 'Hercules' cargo plane from Iwakuni, Japan, near Hiroshima, to Chu Lai and then Danang.  Major DuBois was my first OIC of the Tactical Air Command Center, a part of the operational headquarters of the 1st Marine Air Wing in Danang, RVN. He introduced me to the term "happy horseshit."  It was how he described good, i.e., encouraging, news that we received from the government in Washington or MACV hq in Saigon, or Armed Forces Radio or Stars and Stripes newspaper reporting the 'happy horseshit.' "Progress being made", "light at the end of the tunnel", "hearts and minds",  'home by Christmas' and all that "happy horseshit" according to Maj. DuBois, and then by all of us.  I thought of Maj. DuBois as I read an old review of Ken Burns' Vietnam War series on  Huffington Post: "A voice-over by Peter Coyote subsequently claims that the Vietnam War was “started in good faith by decent men.”   However, the film goes on to recount a history in which the United States failed to allow for elections in the South after Vietnam had been divided following the French defeat at Dienbienphu. Everybody knew North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh would win the election, and so the United States set about building a client regime in the South that rigged a referendum and then massacred thousands of suspected communists. These facts point to the United States violating the sovereignty of Vietnam and betraying the American mission of supporting democracy around the world."  

    The older I get, the more cynical I get and the more I'm coming to believe we live in a world of "happy horseshit" all around us.   We are fed it regularly by our political and governmental leaders, we listen to it on the radio, and we see it on the television.  Entire industries and professions are built to deliver it to us: public relations, marketing, communications, media relations, political consulting, consumer advertising, and crisis management.  In my legal profession, professional adeptness is often measured by how well we mask the truth with half-truths or other concealments.  We lawyers are forbidden to lie, but we are not required to tell the truth.  Misrepresentation is prohibited, but candor is not compelled and is often inconsistent with a lawyer’s duty.  In Homer’s Iliad we read: "Hateful to me as are the gates of Hell is that man who says one thing, and hides another in his heart."  But this is often a lawyer’s stock in trade.  Attorney Bill Clinton’s pathetic performance in the Monica Lewinski fiasco gave us but one example of lawyerly deconstruction and intentional misleading, while arguably not lying.  “It depends on what “is” is”, doesn’t it?"   The temptation to do this sort of thing may be stronger in the litigator than in the transactional lawyer.  Is there any litigator who has not encountered that kind of verbal tap-dancing in responses to interrogatories or RPDs?  Or who hasn’t engaged in it?  Who hasn't buried relevant and hurtful documents in a mountain of irrelevant documents in response to an RPD?  The 'diamond in the dungheap' trick.  Happy horseshit is all around us, every day, everywhere.

Sic transit gloria mundi

We rightly rejoice that the Democrats have succeeded in denying control of the Senate to Mitch McConnell and his fellow fascists.  But how quickly things can change if they lose a member to serious illness, hospitalization, incapacity, decrepitude, or death.  Or perfidy.  Pat Leahy is 82, Bernie Sanders is 81, Diane Feinstein is 89.  Many of the Dems are in their 70s.  Life can turn on a dime.  And how many can be bought and at what price?  How do we explain Kyrsten Sinema's position on vital issues?  And of course in some real sense they are all for sale to some extent.  Why is their leader, Chuck Schumer called "Senator Wall Street"?  Why was then-Senator Biden so very protective of the interests of the credit card industry?  Shen Te, Berthed Brecht's  Good Woman of Setzuan, says: "I’d like to be good, it’s true, but there’s the rent to pay.  And that’s not all:  I sell myself for a living.  Even so I can’t make the ends meet, there’s too much competition."  

Moving Day

Andy and Peter moved Cherie Bubrick's buffet cabinet from Cherie's house to ours at noon.  It was much more difficult than I had thought it would be, not just with negotiating steps, but with transiting the flagstones they use as a walk from the driveway to the front door.  I felt terrible watching them struggle and resolved to take the whole family out for breakfast or brunch as a thank-you.

Goodby Spectrum

Took the last cable box back to the Spectrum store on Capitol Drive today.  As I type this I'm wondering if I succeeded in signing off Spectrum streaming as well as Spectrum cable.  I need to check tomorrow.

Arlington Heights

Geri is scheduled for an overnight visit with her cousin Sue tomorrow.  She'll probably take Lilly.