1117

 Thursday, November 17, 2022

"I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."

Flannery O'Connor

In bed at about 9:30, awake at 4:30, up at 5, 5 pss, no vino.  31 cloudy degrees, high of 32 predicted.  Brr.  High temps below freezing next 3 days.  First visitors to the bird feeders after sunup are the chickadees and of course the squirrels.  Geri has ordered a squirrel baffle for the new shepherd's crook, alas!  Now the finches and a song sparrow (pine siskin?), a woodpecker and a big nuthatch are on the feeders, snowbirds on the ground.

Republicans Win House; McCarthy Carries Caucus Vote

Here we go again.  Bengazi, Bengazi, Bengazi will turn into Hunter, Hunter, Hunter.  Maybe hearings on age restrictions for office-seekers? The threat of default on the National Debt, financial chaos, and plummeting value of retirement accounts.  Lincoln said a house divided against itself cannot stand.  How do we survive so much governmental power in the control of those who hate the government?  And will the Dems finally kill the filibuster rule in the Senate?  Sinema, Manchin.  The greatest government money can buy.

Likely abusive investigations by next House majority: Hunter Biden, origin of covid-19, 'politicization' of DOJ, Afghanistan withdrawal, impeachment of Biden, AG Garland, who ilse?

Most Despicable Human Being in Government?

What a tough call!  Lowest lowlife?  Scummiest scum?  Skuzziest skuzzbucket?  Kevin McCarthy?  Marjorie Taylor-Greene?  Mitch McConnell?  Ted Cruz?  Louie Gohmert? Josh Hawley?  Kyrsten Sinema?  Sam Alito?  Clarence Thomas?  Jim Jordan?  Matt Gaetz?  Ron DeSantis?

Michael Gerson dead at 58

An enigma to me.  He appeared to be a good man, a decent, humane  man, a kind and generous human being, a thoughtful and philosophical writer, exactly the opposite of the group aggregated in the preceding list of 'deplorables.'  An evangelical Christian, a graduate of Wheaton College north of Chicago, a true believer.  And a true Republican, at least in the pre-Trump Republican Party.  He worked as a speechwriter and policy advisor to Chuck Colson in his prison ministry, to George W. Bush in the White House, to Bob Dole and Dan Coats.  None of the Republicans he worked for were loathsome, far from it.  Even Bush, with his regrettable reliance on Cheney and Rumsfeld, had redeeming qualities, notably his compassion for immigrants from the South.  Gerson was a right-hand man for all of them, saw power politics up close, knew the intrinsic venality of political life, the constitutional weakness of American government and the human soul, and yet he was a believer, reminding me of Niebuhr.  He suffered from cancer for years, a cancer that has now taken his life.  Yet he maintained faith in a benevolent personal God.  He must have had a poetic insight into the otherwise ridiculous myths of Christianity.  In his WaPo Christmas column last year, on December 23, 2021, he wrote:

"No matter how we react to the historicity of each element, however, the Nativity presents the inner reality of God’s arrival.  He is a God who goes to ridiculous lengths to seek us.  He is a God who chose the low way: power in humility; strength perfected in weakness; the last shall be first; blessed are the least of these.  He is a God who was cloaked in blood and bone and destined for human suffering — which he does not try to explain to us, but rather just shares. It is perhaps the hardest to fathom: the astounding vulnerability of God.  And he is a God of hope, who offers a different kind of security than the fulfillment of our deepest wishes.  He promises a transformation of the heart in which we release the burden of our desires, and live in expectation of God’s unfolding purposes until all his mercies stand revealed.

There is an almost infinite number of ways other than angelic choirs that God announces his arrival. I have friends who have experienced a lightning strike of undeniable mission, or who see God in the deep beauty of nature, or know Jesus in serving the dispossessed.

For me, such assurances do not come easy or often. Mine are less grand vista than brief glimpses behind a curtain. In Sylvia Plath’s poem “Black Rook in Rainy Weather,” she wrote of an “incandescent” light that can possess “the most obtuse objects” and “grant / A brief respite from fear.” Plath concluded: “Miracles occur, / If you care to call those spasmodic / Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again, / The long wait for the angel. / For that rare, random descent.”

Christmas hope may well fall in the psychological category of wish fulfillment. But that does not disprove the possibility of actually fulfilled wishes. On Christmas, we consider the disorienting, vivid evidence that hope wins. If true, it is a story that can reorient every human story. It means that God is with us, even in suffering. It is the assurance, as from a parent, as from an angel, as from a savior: It is okay. And even at the extreme of death (quoting Julian of Norwich): “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

. . .

The most telling words in his essay are, I suppose, "if true."  Struggling with all the thoughts, including fears and sorrows, that his cancer triggered, he reminds me nonetheless of the story of the optimistic boy who wanted a pony for Christmas and, finding horse manure under the tree on Christmas morning, exulted "With all this horse manure here, there must be a pony somewhere."

Vietnam by Max Hastings

I listened to Hastings' book on the way to and from Costco this morning.  It is very instructive about (a) the reverence and affection most Vietnamese had for "Uncle Ho", (b) the cruelty practiced by the Vietminh towards Vietnamese who stood in their way, (c) the cruelty practiced by the French forces towards the Vietnamese who stood in their way, (d) the fact that the majority of French forces in Vietnam were not ethnic Frenchmen, but mercenaries from Africa, Madagascar, and Vietnam itself.  Above all, with the benefit of hindsight, the stupidity and ultimate futility of French and American colonialism/imperialism are painful to read about and to be a small part of.  Few good guys in this saga.  "The two sides competed in ruthlessness."  I am demonstrably ignorant of most of Vietnam's history, especially its exploitation and oppression by foreign invaders, and my personal knowledge of Americans in country except in the early days when I was one of them, but from what I know today it seems to me that, early on at least, our hearts were 'purer' than the ancient Chinese, the French, the Japanese, and the Nationalist Chinese invaders who preceded us.  Whatever naive innocence we might have laid claim to, however, disappeared rapidly, inevitably, ineluctably, inexorably., nolens volens.

Costco: Tout Va Bien

There is a striking 10-minute scene toward the end of this Godard film set in a modern supermarket.  A long tracking shot of line after line of customers checking out with shopping baskets full of goodies.  It's a chilling depiction of our consumer culture.  I was reminded of it as I shopped at Costco this morning.  I arrived 10 minutes after the store opened and the store was jam-packed.  All of us happy shoppers parading down long aisles jam-packed with stuff, including stuff to hold stuff, stuff to store stuff, stuff to hid stuff, stuff to carry stuff, stuff to clean stuff, stuff to power stuff. stuff to . . . And I loved it.  A new  HP printer, a bottle of my favorite cognac, 48 cans of V8, a heavy plastic-wrapped bunch of thin plastic bottles of Kirkland water,  a big collection of AAA batteries, and a roasted chicken.  I live in the world I live in and I am a part of it, for better or worse, tattooed in the cradle, and complicit.

New Printer

Exactly the same model as the old one we will recycle Saturday morning, which broke down after a bit less than 2 years.  Keeping our fingers crossed that this one works well and works longer.  It turned out to be easy to set up and get connected to our WiFi.

Nancy Pelosi Won't Seek Reelection as Speaker of the House

She is 82 years old.  Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader, is 82 years old.  Jim Clybourn, Whip, is in his 80s.  Pelosi and Hoyer are stepping away which is a good thing.  Having said that, she is one of the my heroes, not for any particular policy she has championed (other than the Affordable Care Act), but for her courage, her speaking truth to power (though she is Power in her own right, of course.)  I wonder if I am the only guy in the world other than Paul Pelosi I suppose who has a photograph of Nancy Pelosi hanging on his bedroom wall, the iconic one in a large conference room in the White House, she is the only woman at the table, across from a bunch of military generals/admirals, standing, looking Trump right in the eyes as she points that every-moving finger at him, saying "With you, all roads lead to Putin" while all the 'suits' at the table look down sheepishly.  My hero.