Stupidity is Ignorance Embraced. ~~~~~~~

Do you see that we live in the land of fuck you freedom??? ~~~~~~~~

Stupidity is Ignorance Embraced. ~~~~~~~ Do you see that we live in the land of fuck you freedom??? ~~~~~~~~

. . . Clisthenes Athens 520 BC

. . . John Vail Hereabouts Circa 2016

WEB LOG

February 7th, 2024

It / Its is it ~ a meditation on pronouns

     I probably won't make Monday ZOOM as I'll attend a Littleton select board meeting, that mostly to consider a public art ban (See on-line the offending public art, a vaguely depicted pride flag in a much larger display, all this silliness I think now headed for wider headlines) and further discussion of an earlier discussion's decision to turn down a $1,000,000 grant to renovate the old, old Opera House for performances by others and Theater Up, . . . because they are planning to stage La Cage au Folles.  One of our number here had offered pointed criticism of my putative presidential campaign (i.e, its pointlessness among so many more drastic and worthy concerns), and suggested that I might do something in support of the LGBTQIA community who are taking heavy fire in some places these days.  So I have a mitzvah. . . .    Well, way does lead on to way and I have gone some way (several weeks or so): some meetings, gatherings to protest the ban.  The grace of our local whosie community is astonishing.  Other thoughts too.

     Jeez 'em, I never heard of all these guys and gals, so many betwixts and betweens, an abundance of possibility.   And my gender, is that something different from my sex?  One learns that the "I" is intersex, which I sort of am now that I am become some girly in not-altogether-unwelcome response to prostate follow-up hormone treatment.  I figure the "I" can stand for it and its too, those my own preferred pronouns, now that I am browbeaten into public declaration of exactly where I fit into a scheme descriptive of nothing but inexactitude.   Putting an additional meaning on the “I” is relief that my idiosyncrasy here will not compound the letter soup problem; otherwise I might have remained mum on the whole matter, confusion enough out here in the real world.  

     The English language had these all along, back to Shakespeare and beyond, perfectly good sex and gender neutral pronouns saying absolutely nothing about being a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, or about sexuality and gender; saying nothing about one's painful and exotic-erotic journey into understanding and enjoyment; saying nothing about coming into latency’s flower with "homo" as withering epithet and fierce enforcer of the usual binary, nothing about the fears and questions arising within about that; saying nothing about having sex with boys when I was boy or with a man when I was a man and certainly saying nothing whatsoever about me enjoying pleasuring that man as much as his pleasuring pleased me; saying nothing about the possibility that my father’s calling me “Eddie” short-for Oedipus was not particularly useful in my psycho-sexual development;  saying nothing about how some sex is empty, soulless, boring; saying nothing about the yearnings of romance, carnal love, the desire for much more than sexual release; saying nothing about Lupron zeroing out both testosterone and libido and wondering, perhaps discovering that both are more mask than expression, obscuring desires as compelling as any I’ve ever had; saying nothing of several dalliances with married ladies, one of which was the end of her marriage, or some fool's calamitous dalliance within my own, saying nothing about Lupron’s side effects for a prostate cancer guy which are its intended consequences for a man aiming to be a woman; saying nothing of wearing my virginity into age 26 as if an affliction or disability, my sexual desires for woman or girl being monumental enough to be unattainable in fact, my staff at cherry-breaking being limp and me thoroughly dependent on the patience and kindness of a woman who thankfully understood fully that I was too excited to be excited, whatever the considerable evidence to the contrary, this sort of a performance becoming a lifelong norm, such that it just makes sense to explain at every outset that “I am no stallion”; saying nothing about her never seeing herself and giving her a speculum to check things out; saying nothing about much sex for many being self-sex, which is satisfying but isn’t too; saying nothing of the last very good sex in a not-immediately-ending relationship consisting of nothing but me down on her, me fairly sure she was deeply satisfied and then content to just settle in to hold her glow; saying nothing about my  wonderings of late about American manhood being so unseemly, so undesirable, so heartless as to leave many searching for the alternatives now appearing culture wide and, in this regard, me giving thanks of late to Senator Josh Hawley who is bold in pointing out that there is indeed a crisis here and bolder still for his willingness to serve as model for exactly what is       wrong with men; saying nothing about latish acquisition of the tastes Sherie Hate suggested for pleasing women; saying nothing about knowing that my place is on top because one vaguely terrifying mate told me so, and that in no uncertain terms, when I dove for the bottom as we headed toward coitus; saying nothing meaningful about my presentation as I make my way around this intense and troubled world . . . I could be a man, a trans-woman walking around dragged as a man, a sort of transexual cross-dresser maybe.  I do have a dress there in my closet.  Who knows?  Who needs to know?  Who cares?

       Yes, it / its is it.   The easy-to-hand shorthand a pronoun ought to be, every bit of clarity that can be reasonably called for.  My sexuality, my gender held private, my real privates so to speak, more precious than what hangs between my legs, some bits apparent to and shared some with those close enough to share that sort of thing with, and always the hope to share fragility, fears, and folly with another wanting to cum all the way in, to shelter in safe refuge, finding sanctuary when condemnation falls heavy and asylum when all is disarray.  No public posturing or posing, no pronouncements necessary, no painful puzzlement about who I really am, as if who I am is not a shifting thing.

      I shall be a pacifist in this war too; though I am sore tempted to observe a thing or two to those determined outcast citizens set on banging down the closet door, these gay folks who are transforming flamboyance into exuberance, these bold souls coming out into full blossom.  Well, maybe just one thing:  While it is arguably and probably true that gender is a social construct; it is also true that “gender” is a social construct.

    I spoke at some length with a middle-aged (That’s 40-60 if you count sensibly) gay man at a Pride gathering.  Our chat drifted into pronouns, the complexity of the cultural shift, the plethora of options.  He remarked that this proverbial cat is out of the bag, which is to say a done deal however much also unsettled, as if the cat cannot be got back in the bag.  Looking at other fronts in the culture wars, one could wonder how many other things are cats out of bags, perhaps better left in.  Redemption may require some back-tracking, making even newer sense, some yields and concessions.  “Ms” worked great, now ubiquitous, its predecessors now relics, quaint.  

     If the childhood taunt “You are an it.” holds any water, it/its may not be it.  The suggestion that one is a thing, not really human is not altogether appealing; though at least it affords a measure of privacy and the disassociation from what passes as human these days does have some appeal.

      Of course, transformation requires more than new words and re-definitions.  We kid ourselves to imagine otherwise, often imagining that the new word, the new meaning has some clarity that cannot even be found within.  Say, for example, what could be more binary than “trans”?  Man to woman, or woman to man.  From this to that.  Like trans-Atlantic: Africa to America, a sea change.  Transpose: change a thing from that to this.  Maybe better “transit” in which we are all traveling, not so much from here to there, just sojourners on the road, making our way best we can.  If all seems muddled, then I have nailed it.

      Back to Littleton, New Hampshire, I can say that the local gender-benders are a thoroughly graceful and grace-filled lot.  Still, and this is even some more months later, they face continuing challenges, sometimes threats, against how they express themselves, how they self-conceive, how they present themselves.  I like the flamboyance to exuberance notion.  Where many of us white folk (as in white bread: plain, regular, mundane, dare I say boring?) slog our way through difficulty as if drudgery is all that can be made of it, the infusion of  the gay way into the local Democratic machine has made of it a joyous passage, a thing not to be missed.     Come out, America whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are.  Count your blessings aloud; proclaim your broken self whole.  You have nothing to lose but your chains. 

January 17, 2024

“Good morning America how are you?  

Said don't you know me?   

I’m your native son.” 

    ~    The City of New Orleans  Steve Goodman   1971

    I’m near the end of this run.  Really, I've been there a month or so, just slowly petering out.  By far, the most rewarding aspect has been making conversation with other citizens:  Democratic Party picnics, the Rainbow Gathering, bars, Fourth of July parade and festival, Porc Fest, the state convention, a Forum for Lesser Known Candidates.  The cold brings becomes a damper, especially for an old guy; but I was mostly out of steam anyway.  Can’t one guy shovel coal and watch track.  

     Perhaps sadly, I also developed yet another good and sufficient reason to avoid the Biden express.  He, the Democratic National Committee, and the D.C. Democrat inner circle have lost their democratic bearings, which amounts to a lesser threat to democracy than does Donald Trump; but we’ve already jumped these rails.  No surprise, if you consider that the engineer is back in the club car sucking whiskey sours with the hoity-toity.  I leave you to seek the data: it would get me ranting.  My own experience included repeated denials of access to the microphones at any Democratic events, save one from one old Democrat stalwart who still knows what the small “d” and local implies in any political process, but that one got rained out.  Not surprising that Democrat insiders do not want to hear a bunch of shit about dark money in politics.  Whatever the case, most of us give lip service to the good sense of democracy and many of us believe that we should return there.  

     I hand out little green cards (sendnomoney.org) asking for several minutes.  Virtually all say yes.  My pitch: “I'm running for president but it's not what you think.  I don't want the job; I'm not qualified for the job; and you'd be foolish to vote for me to have the job.”  And then I go on to mention the problem of money in politics.  Half the people begin to rant before I do.  I've wandered into some Republican scenes. . . them too.  I try to explain the notion that I aim to be a ballot line on which citizens can vote their sentiment about money in politics, to vote such that one expresses a preference for ordering up a job to be done rather than the person to do it.  We are deeply embedded in a system in which we can only imagine our citizen power (my 1/ 333 millionth) being expressed as a choice between persons.  That idea seems plum wore out.

     No doubt, the performances nowadays of Tweedledum and Tweedledee have consequential differences.  But this is no high drama, there is no suspense.  Wall Street and it's well-to-do do just fine, whoever wins the presidency.  If WHAT wins the presidency, it will be a whole new ballgame.  I whine about this a lot (sendnomoney.org) and so do you.  It’s all a piece of your own daily reflections about life and your place in it.  Maybe you’re making sense of the issues and problems of that daily life, noticing that you have been side-tracked to clear the line for the fancy pants express.  Notice that you are not alone.  Or maybe you are paying mind to broader concerns, trying to make sense of American culture, economics, and politics.  If you have heart, your head is awhirl.  This train is not bound for glory; the righteous and holy got chucked off many stations back, nothing now but high flyers and big time liars.  I doubt that I could much improve on the good sense you already make of all this, except maybe to suggest that the crux, as always, will be found wherever or however you do your spiritual work.

    Given my stunning successes here in New Hampshire and me not yet come to my senses, I am likely as not to announce soon that I will be a candidate again in 2028.  Long since, I have gone round the bend and doubt there is way back.  It’s the idea that makes the most sense.  We, the people and all that.

     All of us are right to observe, to know, to lament that money in politics is a grotesque pollutant in our national discourse.  Many claim that this is just the way it is.  Big Mistake.  Eliminating the problem is the next best step; it is the only next step that matters given that corporate forces, elite people, and dark money are immediately at the task of foiling any gains made by any other step;  it is a step that will lift our spirits immeasurably; and it is the step by which we will endow our children with the democratic legacy they deserve.  I suppose saying “this is just the way it is” is preferable to saying “this is just the way things work” because it is clear hardly a thing is working at all. 

     I've been mulling this for 3 or 4 years, figuring that the way out of this hole lies with us the people, the whole damn lot of us stepping forward together, we the people collected in a fierce union of folks determined to put new flame to Liberty’s torch.  One guy ain’t gonna get the job done.  

So people get ready

There's a train a-comin'

You don't need no baggage

You just get on board

All you need is faith

To hear the diesels humming

Don't need no ticket

You just thank the Lord   

The Impressions   ~  1965

and a whole lot of others who know a song or two

September 30, 2023 ~ Stump

A Speech Not Delivered

     Good afternoon.  My name is John Vail and I am running for president.  It is not what you think.  I am not a suitable candidate for the office.  I do not want the job.  I am too old to serve.  I am unelectable.  I have good friends who would say that I am spectacularly unqualified.  Yet, I stand here before you. 

     THE question for 2024 is WHAT not who.  That once again, THE question for 2024 is WHAT not who.  That what is getting money out of politics.  That what is about ending rule by wealthy elites.  It is about eliminating the influence of corporations in the people’s business.  It is about lobbying, dark money, Citizens United, etc., etc., etc.  As Justice Potter Stewart said of pornography, we all know it when we see it.

     The easiest part of my job is to convince you that the problem exists.  Concern about money in politics and the corruption that goes with it is by far the largest piece of common ground in our divided nation.  Notice that the jackasses who assaulted the Capital building on January 6th played this tune.  Notice that Donald Trump’s base is outraged on the matter.  Notice, unfortunately, that some of us Democrats are deeply complicit in keeping this money game going; but notice that many more of us are deeply troubled by the party’s inability to cut this cord and that we look to be done with this obscene game altogether.  

     The problems we face as a nation, as a culture, as a civilization, and as a planet all have large amounts of money devoted to preventing their solutions.   We who volunteer our time in evenings and on weekends are competing with people who are paid lucrative salaries to confound our efforts.  We who volunteer devote much of this time to begging for pittances to fund our operations; our opposition is flush with whatever funds they want.   

      I aim to be a candidate in the New Hampshire Democratic primary.  I aim to create a ballot line, my name John Vail, on which people can vote for this WHAT, can vote to rid ourselves of this plague of corruption.  I will be a stand in for an idea.  It will be clear that nobody is voting for me.  The aim is to get delegates to the Democratic convention and play our hand there.  Beyond that, the aim is to gather this wonderful, cantankerous citizenry into a risen body to reclaim our birthright as the rightful wellspring of every bit of this government’s powers. 

    Not me, Us.  The expression is in the wind.  Is this something coined by Bernie?  It is a clear echo of “We, the people”.   We are faced with a dismal and utter failure of leadership in this country, made near useless because of political money.  Let us step up together to secure Abraham Lincoln’s government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

     Can a citizen in a democracy cast a vote to choose the job to be done, rather than the tradesman to do it?  I say yes.  Can We, the people vote to create and deliver a job order to the Congress,  as if that Congress is employed by us to do our bidding.  I say yes, but you see the problem. That Congress is not now employed by us.  For decades, our Senators and Representatives have been responsive to narrow interests who care not a twit about us.  Those narrow interests pour in wads of cash, some of it from God knows where or who.  This money is payment for services due.  We are fools to think otherwise.

     We speak of dark money.  And indeed it is.  Our work and cherishing, our debate and struggle, our views of each to the other, are all done in fog and darkness.  This campaign amounts to little more than an idiot in the corner suggesting that we turn on the lights. 

    What, not who, is the point. . . . as I’ve said.   Nothing else.  The goal is to reclaim our government out of the hands of wealthy elites and the corporations they control.  So everything said here aims to propel enough of us into actions that head that way.  It is a direct, non-violent approach to putting the citizenry back in charge of government and creating a legacy those who follow deserve.  

     There is a website: sendnomoney.org.  I am happy to answer questions here following.  Thank you.

September 4, 2023

Vail Betrays Progressive Pals ~ Opts for 2nd Amendment Originalism

     Not sure whether pride or shame should accompany me into this company; but here I am, making the case for constitutional originalism when it comes to the 2nd amendment.  The amendment itself:   A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

     A better grammarian might argue that the amendment was written with acceptable, if not intentional ambiguities embedded in the phrasing and that the intention for doing so was that these uncertainties of intent allowed a pseudo-resolution to problems that could not be otherwise solved.  No one would want to go there anyway, so lets move on to what it says.

      A right of the people:   In 1787, and continuing today, any English grammar book would have ‘people’ making reference to two or more persons.  Adding ‘the’ creates a unity of people, a people all together. like say “We, the people”.   May I safely assume that, in this context, “the people” can refer only to the US citizenry and that the reference is also to all of that citizenry.  One might argue, some always do. . . 

    So why has current jurisprudence decided that the right is one granted individual persons, like say the right to do in your own bedroom what you damn well please as long as it does not harm others or involve children?   The court has some blather about this, but a more fundamental answer lies elsewhere.  And that answer is that there is no such thing as “we, the people” in this country, no collected citizenry, no common ground.  That fact is lamentable.  That fact is putting us at some peril.  That fact is sufficiently embedded in the culture’s fiber so as to leave us limited (epistemologically even) to conceiving all in terms of individual selves rather than a social unity.  Oh Shit, I’m gonna get wandered off into how that inconceivability of social intercourse in these days and in this place can and does become conceivable in something that looks vaguely Marxist or some such.  Oh, scary, scary.  I’ll stop.

     [note:  sendnomoney.org offers that Getting Money Out of Politics may be the LARGEST piece of common ground in this country]    

     So I say, there is this cultural disinclination to see much of anything as belonging to the collected citizenry, to all as opposed to each or, even worse, to just some.  The current court’s working ken omits this fundamental piece of our DNA, our history, our raison d’être.  With no good sense of a collected unity out here, the court is left to go nowhere but claiming a right for individuals.   A blunder.  Anyway, rightly understood, a right of “the people”. . . .

     And why did the founding humans figure it should be a right of the people?   Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State.  Duh.   

     a-   The American revolution was won in significant, critical measure because well- organized (that is, trained and equipped) militias showed up often enough to be a decisive difference.  

     b-    Militias tended to be organized locally, and so were capable of responding reasonably quickly to local opportunities to fight, terrorize, or harass  the British.

     c-   The Revolution, like most revolutions, was a revolt against the putative government ruling the colonies and, by logic and necessity, against the British army, that being the only standing army in play.  The revolt needed the ad hoc-ishness of moving from demonstration & protest to violence and war. . . militias.  

      Again note what is implicit in the grammar of then and nowadays.  The opening dependent clause is the whole point of the amendment, its raison d’etre.  The right to keep and bear arms is key to making it possible for the people to create and maintain well-organized militias.   The founders certainly did not aim to give lunatic individuals the freedom to slaughter American school children.  Nor did they aim to address anything having to do with hunting or other sport.  Nor did they speak to anything having to do with protecting oneself in one’s own home; otherwise the amendment would have said, “A weapon close to hand, being useful in protecting home and hearth, the right of persons to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”   

     Rightfully suspicious of government and wary of its inclination to drift into tyranny, the founders arranged checks and balances.  Militias could be considered a 4th branch of government, the only one suitable for bringing the other 3 branches to heel if they happen to run amuck in some confounded horrid unison. 

     Any well-organized militia has standards and procedures.  Military hardware and ammunition would be stored in secured armories; armorers would sign weapons in and out for firearms training and otherwise keep account of their use, location, and condition.  Any law requiring such procedures and standards is constitutional by appeal to the “well-regulated” notion, which is ignored by the USSC.  A knotty problem is assuring that all is well-organized while also maintaining the militias’ independence from government control.  

     The 4th branch idea bears further inquiry.  Perhaps we are distracted by the slaughter of our school children, as well we should be; but that is an entirely different problem.  The founders, probably with some encouragement from the rabble at the gate, saw the possibility of a shift to tyranny, of democratic process being subverted, of private interest encroachment into governmental powers.  We speak of militias in this time and place based on a number of inputs most of which culminated in the January 6th debacle at the Capital.  One sees the importance of being well organized, . . . yes?  And, more than a few out here see that such shift, subversion, and encroachment are already become cause for great alarm.  The January Sixers, in addition to being stupid and coming into the fray in complete disarray, were also not complete idiots in their assessment that the US has become mostly oligarchic, plutocratic.  Also, with no good sense of a collected unity out here, the court can say or do nothing to affirm the right, indeed the necessity to maintain well-organized militias that are at hand to address any confounded horrid unison of the other 3 branches that put us in major jeopardy.   

     Will we the people step forward and reclaim our democratic heritage?  And, by the way, no need yet for the whole violence and civil war thing, we can vote ourselves back into power if we only dare: sendnomoney,org. 

August 31, 2023

End of Hiatus

    Again, that getting started thing.  Fasten two or three boards together and you have a corner.  Beginning.  Post deadline by midnight, avoid slipping into a 3rd drought month.  I’m off in the morning early to fish lobster out of Blue Hill Bay, . . . well, the other guy is.  A free boat ride for me.

    Jeez ‘em.  My political consultant asked if I had the stomach for churning out blog stuff on a more or less daily basis.  The record to date looks as if I am not.  Further evidence that I lack presidential timber.  The redemption blog?  Looks like the guy just walked out of the room.

    A note:  Some have criticized my writing, the style, the density, maybe verbosity and diction. . . something along those lines.  Hard luck on that for them.  Boarding school English.  No one escaped Jim Howard’s writing course without absorbing the entirety of Elements of Style and without becoming adept at writing a competent sentence or two in the King’s English.  Bear with me please; one comes to taking pride in a thing and it becomes a stuck thing.  Even where complaint is legit, certainly not one of my greatest flaws. 

     2 months gone by.   Probably some things to be said about this hiatus:  I made some gains:  a bunch of press releases out, enough recognition to now have access to Democratic podiums, some tech help which will improve your listening and viewing experience, time spent on the hustings chatting with folks (maybe not so good to have gotten so far along as to have developed a spiel, a spiel being way easier than coming up new every time).  Lots of folks out here pissed off about political money.  Other things too:  a-  One could almost count on me having romantic calamity: endings which come harder me, and beginnings which don’t set out.  b- Perhaps only a false restart here:  I’m away from home sitting by a warm fire after a day spent some damp; the pondering here by the flame and coals is irresistible.  d-  Home has me puttering on projects much of the day; I even dug one up here which I could have let gone by.  All are distraction, entertainment, and concrete completions which feed me something . . . not sure what, but pre-occupying so leaving less time for this.

     d- But the redemption blog has been sobering, brought me up short, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, though perhaps something essential about redemption does leave us agape, standing before the answer without getting it or insisting it has been got.   The poor.  Something said about our collective creation of all this misery will be ruinous. 

     A caution here, not all the poor are miserable.  Many, most figure a way to make a life.  The campesino villages in Honduras, I expected the poverty: hand-to-mouth, things hand-made hand built, the scarcity, barefoot children and dirt floors.  But then there is people’s connection each to the other, those who step forward to do the planning and work aimed at community-wide benefit, those who take in a child, related or not, because what else is to be done.  

    More to say, as I figure it.  Off to bed.  Expected on the wharf at 5:30.  It’s a restart.

     He occurs.  Sisyphus.  He should have given up, no point going on.  The rock just couldn’t be got up that hill.  Higher and steeper, rolling the darn thing becomes lifting the damn thing. Now I’m no Sisyphus.  I can’t get this thing rolling at all . . . so far.  But I do know that a 2nd set of hands will definitely do the trick, . . . get it rolling that is.  I’m on break over here in Acadia, trying to figure campaign goals and get to them.  A huge deal would be to get someone to sign up in another state.  It came to mind that I know some more than suitable folks hereabouts: 3 couples.  I’ve done a hard press on 2 of the men, and a softer press on their women.  Tomorrow, the 3rd couple.  Mostly I’ve known the men: a 3rd grade classmate, a college roommate, and the aforementioned lobsterman down the road.  The lack of focus on women may be error.  We’ll see.  Good night.

Saturday, July 1st Redemption

Redemption is really the problem here. If I can find redemption, just for myself, the effort will have been worthwhile; though I fear, along with many others, the need for redemption has become an emergency in and for this embittered nation. Half hate half who hate them, not a sustainable operation; though almost all see that there is this upper crust who do quite well whoever serves in Washington. Will millions stand up, me amongst them, to voice a preference for reclaiming the notion that our nation is ruled by all people, not a few people with a lot of money?

The Untied States is rife with conspiracy theories: those in are convinced, those out call them wingnuts. These theorists seem to imagine conversations in back smoke-filled rooms or poolside at some lavish resort. Imagining in such a way, one is apt to not see a conspiracy gathered and executed in plain sight: Say for example, the Federalist Society which has worked brilliantly (however also lamentably) for decades to transform American Jurisprudence into what we will suffer with for more decades to come. This jurisprudence is often complete nonsense, apparent to even the commonest man, though he or she is apt to be battered into an inconfidence that leaves them for too reliant on the opinions of others. Some remarks on America Jurisprudence will appear in later blogs.

I offer a simpler notion of conspiracy. The word has origins in ancient Latin: con = together and spiritus = spirit. Respire, breathe in and out. Expire, breathe out, the final breath; though I think one at the end actually inspires, a last breath taken in. In religious jargon, one is inspired by a holy spirit, that spirit comes in and gives us inspiration. The conspiracy of which we speak is a recognition that there is a group of people who breathe together, they breathe the same air. They do not need to come into a smoke-filled room, they do not need to gather. In some significant measure, their common breath is an inspiration of money, power, and greed (I’m fine with you editing that ‘greed’ into ‘fierce acquisitiveness’.). Yes, their sometime brilliance, their discipline, their sometime hard work, their coming from the gate with abundant privilege, head start, and perhaps a wad of seed money already, their graduations from spiffy universities, all that too plays large Old money and new, they breathe the same air. Wall street financiers, internet billionaires, industrial magnates, they breathe the same air. I always imagine the following telling the whole tale here: Bill and Hilary attended Donald and Melania’s wedding. Yet out here in reality, we are urged, usually vehemently, to see the pairs as mortal enemies of the other, and to vote for and against as if our lives depended on it.

Perhaps I ought apologize for this pre-occupation with the rich and powerful. However, if this campaign says anything, it says that they and their current command of governmental reins is THE stumbling block which must be removed if we are to enter a new day. Redemption lies on the other side of this block, and it clearly will address the needs of the poor, along with many other things. Always looking at a thing, It is useful to consider what is which is often not even close to what people say. Poor people are relentlessly maligned; they serve as universal scapegoat for much of our frustrations about the world. One might notice that, with our frustrations now running considerably higher, we are much inclined to add others to this heap of misfortune, the poor no longer a large enough receptacle for the vitriol needing spew these days. The fears and anxiety among gender-benders of any strip is on the rise; as are the outward, and sometime dangerous, expressions of hatred of people who have nothing but.

A psychotherapist friend has it that trauma . . . uh, yes, I were saying something here

poverty. . . . Did he just walk out of the room?

Wednesday June 28th    Redemption [Note: This should be better, . . . a bit of panic as I hop to the chore of taking down the tumbledown cabin out in the yard.]

      Redemption.  Jeez ‘em crow.  I’m so mad so often, there’s no space for the question, much less the problem.  I suppose redemption around the Bar Graph entry lies in looking at it’s impossible tail end. 

      Twenty or so years ago, the Boston Globe Spotlight team gave us the 1st grand unveiling of the Catholic Church’s problem with clergy sexual abuse of children.  Redemption around that problem is just plain humming right along.  Cardinal Law was outed for his missteps handling revelations and incidents throughout his tenure as Boston’s archbishop, that were themselves 20 years older, with the actual abuses dating back to the 1960’s.  The book came out, a prize-winner.  The movie came out in 2015, a best picture Oscar.   In 2018, Pope Francis called a convocation of bishops to consider the matter.  Courageous folks continue to step forward to reveal the horrors visited upon themselves during their youth.  

     The church is still imagining the possibility of being human and having no sex life.  This is redemption’s pace.  It occurs that this pace may not be up to the task of getting ahead of, much less keeping apace with the problems we face here in 2023.  What do you think?

    The Spotlight team keeps humming along.  In 2017, they threw a light on wealth accumulation of black folk in Boston.  Average: $8.  $8!!  Yes, $8.  Really??  Really.  You must be kidding.  No.  That’s that tail end of the bar graph.  

     [Thank God, I live in the White Mountains.  The black bears are back, 2 of them tromping around in the back this morning.  A big guy way up in a big white pine.  Hereabouts, a bear, whatever the sex or gender, is advisedly addressed as “Sir”.  Last summer, some she “Sir” was hanging about with her three cubs back there in the woods.  Might have been her who went out on a limb in the apple tree in the fall too far and fell, taking the betraying limb to the ground.  Not cool lady.  Not cool at all.  I’ve had ‘em in the house.  Another story.  Also not cool.]

    I would think those bears have an easier time making do off the land out there in the woods than a human can make do with $8 in Boston.  Now Jesus did say something about always having the poor with us.  Some of our Christian brethren have figured how to worship God and mammon, rather astounding given clear scriptural prohibitions against doing so.  Of course, one could argue that that is preferable to just worshipping mammon alone, which seems to be the religion of a good hunk of our secular world.  This “prosperity gospel” is preached from many Christian pulpits: God gives you what you deserve.  Anyway, Jesus’ comment seems to some to lend itself to notions about poverty being OK, . . .for the rest of us.  

     Poverty, OK??  Really. You must be kidding.   I’m all over this notion of We, the People.  And this tolerance of grinding poverty is who We, the People are.  And if we look at the trends on the Bar Graph’s asymptotic end; we should also take awareness that the tail end has the countervailing trend.  We can look forward to impoverishing more and more people, creating more and more misery for more and more people.  Many of those folks are children. This misery will ruin us.  Not cool.  Not cool at all.

Thursday, June 22nd ~ John ~ Rant, because I can’t help myself

Email from Huck:

The campaign is heating up so I’ve bought ad space, charged to your Visa, for Iowa and NH. Some of the spots include your grizzled moniker in the background with a chyron noting Guns and Gold party funding. On the main screen will see messages such as:

Heil Vail

Or maybe Hail Vail

We’ll prevail with Vail

Never fail with Vail

Also, you can work on editing this bio:

John was born to a destitute sharecropper family just as the civil war was ending. He moved to Paris soon after and attended the Sorbonne for one term then moved to Moscow for his socialist indoctrination. Then he was off to the Middle  East for some exciting Jihad. His fellow country men, dressed mostly in green fatigues, soon caught up with him and he was able to spend some meditative time on the beach for 8 years. Then came his triumphant return to American politics. He was elected to 4 terms as Easton’s dog catcher. And now he is ready to lead us to white-skinned prosperity.

VOTE HOHN VAIL!

Sent from my iPhone

Huck   -   Yes, the campaign is heating up. I don’t know what the 8 years on the beach were, but you’ve nailed the basics. Some now many months ago you voiced interest in serving as my campaign manager. You're hired.  Of course, you will expect benefits customarily befitting those in the position.  Can we schedule a face-to-face?  Some afternoon perhaps, here at headquarters?  We can settle on your compensation and benefits package;  and then get to some thinking about strategic planning.  Do you have any thoughts about how I might arrange limousine pick-up to get you here?  All things working out to your satisfaction, I will be delighted to have you on board.    Peace,    John 

THE BAR GRAPH

Man, I could never figure how to start a thing. Wow, cut and paste an email exchange and I’m off. I know he was joking, but I’m not. And you shouldn’t be either. Admittedly, it’s a megabucks ticket: very long odds with a very big payout. Hell, I wouldn’t bet the ranch either: the anesthetized American people stepping up in something that looks like unison? A bunch of us nobodies and sorta somebodies schlumping our way through our little lives and now coming into our own?? Hard to imagine, though a dream delight.

Yeah, yeah, from the Story, I’m fed up. Hard to remember the steps of one’s passage, but the bar graph was huge. Zzzzzzzzzz.

     

     Now it’s years ago that I preached this sermon.  That graph line ascends asymptotically, gets to where it’s just about heading straight up.  At the time, Bezos was worth something like $110 billion (now $151), Gates was $45 billion or so (now $118).  Elon Musk was either not in the running or I wasn’t paying attention to him (now $239, though maybe he has mucked that up with his Twitter screw-ups).  So on that old graph, Bezos was at cruising altitude of a commercial airliner (33,000 feet, as I remember).  A church sanctuary does not exactly lend itself to saying “That is fucking complete bullshit.” even if that is the only way to accurately nail the truth of the fact.  My actual punch line did fit the room, was better and maybe even more accurate:  “That is not his money.”  Try that out, I’ve gotten to where I can say it quietly, conversationally.  “That is not his money.”

The question of who has what, who has some, and who has nothing inevitably raises the problem of envy. Friends with money often have vacation homes on the water, travel to exotic climes, go to pricey theater and music events, and so on. It seems a good bit of that stuff can be budgeted comfortably out of an accumulated wad of several million dollars; or perhaps I’ve taken the navel view, which yields hardly a clue; but some millions certainly seems to fit the range. Now maybe I’d covet that vacation home and some of that other stuff; but there just has to be some limit here. Certainly, by half a billion, we’d be talking a whole other character defect than jealousy. This view is from someone who lives around the median. Maybe someone kinda poor gets green [BTW, I’ve been getting some compliments on my website green.] because the other fellow has a flashy new car and he, she or whoever is driving a clunker. Or maybe someone who is way poor gets green because the other guy’s oversize cardboard box shelter is deep under the freeway underpass and his is a bit damp out there at the edge. Yeah, yeah, it’s all relative and all; but it just seems that, at some point, enough is plenty and wanting anything beyond those some millions is just evidence of that some other character defect.

[An encounter with a very good friend: Staying a few days at his house, in and out together and not, I walked into the family-TV-office and sometime soccer pitch, him at the computer. I came in quick; he jumped to cover the screen. Oh shit, embarrassing, I’d caught him looking at porn. But, as I say, I was coming in quick and saw anyway. It was a spreadsheet of his assets.]

So here I am sitting on my 1” pile of $350,000, give or take, and there’s Jeff way up in the sky now well above cruising altitude, probably into the stratosphere. One of these guys is going to get up into that rare air, and black out for want of oxygen. I’m not stupid, so I do see that the law says that all that money is his. And I know lots of folks out here where capitalism reigns supreme would say it’s his, maybe even that he earned it. I’d say, think like that and you might wind up having to say that Jesse James earned his money; his work was certainly way more dangerous. As a college roommate said, often enough the law is ‘a ass’, and the distribution of wealth hereabouts is proof positive that it is. Not a little out of whack, not just needing some adjustments to the tax code, this is fucking bullshit. Actually much worse: grotesque, absurd, lamentable, obscene, insane, certainly a bit unfair??, ugly, invidious, cruel, and on. Our bent away from religious and spiritual practice these days leaves us ill-equipped to call the thing what it is: Dare we call a thing evil?

Again, me on my 1 inch pile: Vocationally speaking, I’ve been pretty disorganized, downright shiftless in some periods. But I’ve made some contributions, worked hard through significant stretches, I’ve been some useful to other folks and to society No fucking way is this man’s contribution four hundred and twenty-eight million, five hundred and seventy-one thousand, and four hundred and twenty-eight times my contribution. Man, if you are sitting on that $350,000 pile, even a bunch more or a bunch less and you figure allotments of wealth out here are just about right, I’d imagine you might be wicked depressed about your own place in the world. Me, I’m bummed by other things, not what I’ve done around making, having, and spending money.

That is not his money. 

** The blog rants will be brought to you by Staff Sergeant Jimmy Fuckin’ Young.  Jimmy Young would say fuck 6 times in a 10 word sentence:  “You fucking maggots, you’ve got 15 fucking minutes to get this fucking clusterfuck unfucked.” He was a hardass tho figured that was key for preparing a man to be shot at. He must have been an excellent squad leader; I didn’t go overseas.

Friday and beyond . . .

The bar graph:  I don’t know how this will work out as a picture plopped into this web building program, but it should be relatively useful.  I’ll describe it here as an 8 & 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper.  There I am at 1 inch, $350,000 of wealth give or take, mostly a house and a bit of cash.  In the US population, I am close to the median . . . half of us have more, half of us have less.  The top of the sheet is about 3.3 million dollars.  I have some friends who have about that; I don’t know which has what.   Some have quite a bit more, I don’t know how much more.  Careful observation will have you noting that I am not exactly in the middle of the graph.  As you would guess, there are some who are off the graph.

      Note that I have a smile.  I’m often a depressive sort of fellow.  But for the purposes of the graph, the smile is appropriate.  As to my material life, I have enough to be plenty OK.  I get medical care thru the VA; my local facility is out-fucking-standing.**  Always smart for a vet to check out the quality of the local VA before moving to some new place.  As my ex-wife remarked, I am cheap.  That is, I am inexpensive to maintain and wanting a thing does not mean I have to have it.  Good enough is a standard worth looking at.  I do my own work, and am content to use (actually delight in using) what is at hand, used, repurposed, or found.  [A side note here: Over the years I have come to understand that some found objects are not exactly lost, which has not always deterred me.]

the

Bar

Graph