1204

 Sunday, December 4, 2022

In bed around 9, up around 4:20, multiple pss, no toddy.  Made it through the night with no distress after a rough day and rougher night of IC-type pain.  21 degrees out, wind chill 9, expecting high of 36, sunny skies.  Wind at 14 mph, range from 10-15, gust to 28 mph.  Yesterday wind hit 46 mph in Milwaukee.  Not saying much considering the limits of my memory, but I don't remember a year that was this windy here.

Countering Happy Horseshit with Happy Horseshit From Heather Cox Richardson's most recent post: "Today, one of former president Trump’s messages on the struggling right-wing social media platform Truth Social went viral. In the message, Trump again insisted that the 2020 presidential election had been characterized by “MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION,” and suggested the country should “throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or…have a NEW ELECTION.” Then he added: “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone False & Fraudulent Elections!” In other words, Trump is calling for the overthrow of the Constitution that established this nation. He advocates the establishment of a dictator."  This is, as we used to say in RVN, pure happy horseshit.  No surprise from Trump.

Then she added: "White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement: “The American Constitution is a sacrosanct document that for over 200 years has guaranteed that freedom and the rule of law prevail in our great country. The Constitution brings the American people together—regardless of party—and elected leaders swear to uphold it. It’s the ultimate monument to all of the Americans who have given their lives to defeat self-serving despots that abused their power and trampled on fundamental rights. Attacking the Constitution and all it stands for is anathema to the soul of our nation, and should be universally condemned. You cannot only love America when you win.”  This of course is also pure happy horseshit.  

We need to get clear-headed about the Constitution and stop revering it as "sacrosanct."  It was created by wealthy white males to protect the wealth and interests of wealthy white males, one of those interests being race-based human slavery.  The wealthy white men who created it distrusted democracy, witness the Senate and the Electoral College which are still vital components of American 'democracy'.  And the 'rule of law' is, I believe, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.  To the extent it was valued by the Founders, it was as a protection of private property interests, i.e,. wealth.  Especially in Southern states, wealthy white males bristled at the exercise of federal authority from the get-go which ultimately consummated in our deadliest war.  That bristling continues today in many of this nation's citizens, witness Trump's happy horseshit posting, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, the January 6th mob, the current Republican Party, and the current culture wars.  In addressing the many vital challenges facing the nation, it would be helpful to start by not spouting happy horseshit but I know that is unthinkable.  We swim in a sea of happy horseshit every day, coming from politicians, news media, religious leaders, powerful corporations, commercial advertisers and marketers,  and social media.   Misinformation, disinformation, lies, half-truths, fantasies and wishful thinking: the mental junk food we are fed each day of our lives.   I think of a sentence from the end of Fintan O'Toole's We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland:  " “What is possible now, and was entirely impossible when I was born, is this: to accept the unknown without being so terrified of it that you have to take refuge in fabrications of absolute conviction.”  Fabrications like the Constitution is "sacrosanct" and that it guarantees "freedom and the rule of law."  Let's get real.

(And what do I read next but . . .  )

Why We Can’t Tell the Truth About Aging: A long life is a gift. But will we really be grateful for it? The New Yorker, 11/4/2019

"Walt Whitman, who never married, made it to seventy-two, and offered a lyric case for aging. “youth, large, lusty, loving—youth full of grace, force, fascination,” he intoned. “Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?” It’s pretty to think so, but biology suggests otherwise. The so-called epigenetic clock shows our DNA getting gummed up, age-related mitochondrial mutations reducing the cells’ ability to generate energy, and our immune system slowly growing less efficient. Bones weaken, eyes strain, hearts flag. Bladders empty too often, bowels not often enough, and toxic proteins build up in the brain to form the plaque and the spaghetti-like tangles that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Not surprisingly, sixty-eight percent of Medicare beneficiaries today have multiple chronic conditions. Not a lot of grace, force, or fascination in that. In short, the optimistic narrative of pro-aging writers doesn’t line up with the dark story told by the human body."

Earlier in the essay, the author made reference to Cicero's famous essay on old age, De Senectute.  Out of curiosity, I looked up synonyms for senectitude, or old age, in the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus: "geezerhood, senescence, decrepitude, feebleness, infirmity, anility, caducity, dotage, second childhood, senility." I'm not familiar with 'anility' and 'caducity', but the other words are only too familiar,   

Later in the essay, there's a reference to "William Ian Miller’s eccentric “Losing It: In Which an Aging Professor Laments His Shrinking Brain”(2011)."  That's surely a book I should get.  Later yet, the author observes: "At the moment, we seem to be compensating for past transgressions: far from devaluing old age, we assign it value it may not possess. Yes, we should live as long as possible, barring illness and infirmity, but, when it comes to the depredations of age, let’s not lose candor along with muscle tone. The goal, you could say, is to live long enough to think: I’ve lived long enough."  What a lovely thought - "Let's not lose candor along with muscle tone."  Down with happy horseshit about old age!

The author, Arthur Krystal, ends eloquently with an homage to Ecclesiastes: "But what do I know? I’m just one person, who at seventy-one doesn’t feel as good as he did at sixty-one, and who is fairly certain that he’s going to feel even worse at eighty-one. I simply know what men and women have always known: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.” If only the writer had stopped there. Unfortunately, he went on to add, “In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. . . . The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise? This too is meaningless.” No young person could have written that."  As they say, it's not for wimps.

Sunday Morning Blather rarely interests me since Trump left office and 'Sleepy Joe' took the nation's helm, but the lineups on Fox News Sunday shows caught my attention: Kevin, McCarthy, Herschel Walker, Mike Pompeo, Ron Johnson, and Mike Pence.  Stunning collection of bad guys.

Chantel Akerman's South is a documentary about the1998 murder of James Byrd, Jr., in Jasper, Texas near the Louisiana line. I have watched it before but I watched it again this afternoon.  It's understated but powerful, chilling in its long stretches of silence and long panning shots of the city of Jasper and the lonely country road where Byrd was dragged to death for 3 miles behind a pickup truck.  I thought to re-watch it when I read in the morning paper that Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was recently voted the greatest movie ever filmed by an esteemed group of film experts.  I've watched that movie as well and would have watched it today but it's not available on my streaming service Ovid.  I'll look at other services.  In South, the long tracking sequences of the city remind me of the long tracking shot of the checkout lanes in Godard's Tout Va Bien.