Camelot? No More!

Saw a film about difference, today ... Out of Cordoba ... film on the 12th C. period in Spain when the three Abrahimic religions lived together ... made me tearful ... most of what I listen to today is polluted by the nastiness of the Mean Clown!

But what made my eyes warm. Hard to say but clearly had something to do with the elections. It occurred to me after the airing when I asked the Director: 

"Could you help me with my pessimistic feelings. I found myself thinking that you (the Director, Jacob Bender) were determined to demonstrate that in Cordoba, later in Venice, and I would think in other places, too, like Pisa ... in all those places at moments in history folk lived together. That is, you've demonstrated that it's possible. Still, in each of these situations, someone comes along with a political agenda and USES difference as a means of gaining power."

As I've found myself considering throughout this election cycle, I have no reason to disbelieve the Little Trumpets when they say that their Father doesn't have a racist bone in his body. And when the Christians expelled the Muslims and Jews from large parts of Spain, I have no reason to believe -- in general -- that these expulsions were related to bigotry. "I hate these people, so they must leave." 

No, I suspect it's, as I've said before, much worse than that. I suspect that these expulsions -- or in Drumpf's case his misogynous comments and his anti-Muslim and Mexican comments (whether they're his sentiments or not) -- are based in nothing else than utilitarian necessity. 

The persona that Donald puts forward knows no such dichotomous categories ... Muslim-Christian ... Jew-Christian ... White-Black ... Russian-American .... perhaps, not even Rich-Poor. No. The only consistent binary category is "With Me" or "Agin Me." And here, while people who actually experience life this way are deemed by the Psychotherapists as struggling with Borderline and/or Narcissistic Personality Disorders, it matters little whether Mr. Trump suffers from these developmental disorders or simply presents himself as such a person -- except that the latter is likely indicative of a more dangerous kind of despot!

The very idea that America would elect itself a President who will accept his enemies as long as they succumb ... that he would put Krispy Kreme Kristie who mercilessly attacked him during the RNC Primary in charge of putting together a government simply because he's relenting to his power ... all this is far worse that even electing a Birchist who actually believes that his type is superior to another's ... and that makes me sad ... profoundly sad.

This American experiment has worked progressively well for 240 years. For that many years, we've worked to refine a system in which difference is not to be used in a utilitarian fashion ... purely, to achieve power. It's sad, also, that so many have been mesmerized by him. They have been scammed so much that they fail to see the paradox in fighting -- to the end -- to preserve the 2nd Ammendment to the Constitution -- all the time willing to abridge the Bill of Rights.

Many have pointed out that the Founding Fathers who ratified the 2nd Ammendment were authorizing the posession of single-load non-repeater rifles and had no idea that their Amendment would be perverted to include high-count-magazine repeaters ... and maybe RPG's.

I was saddened by the film and the obvious recognition that experiments such as Cordoba in the 12th C. or Venice in the 14th ot the United States in the 18th were ... ephemeral moments in time ... always at the risk of despots and ego-maniacal folk who maybe had never known love ... but certainly who were not skilled in doing more than speaking about love to others.

Sad, indeed.

Cigar Store Old Man

Haven't Posted to the Old Man Blog in months. The election 2016 took over, even though  the amount of skin in the game that I have as denizen of the Last Eighth of Life -- one who ought rightly be considered a dignitary in that Last Quarter -- is admittedly small. And still no sense that apres moi la deluge. Suppose it would be easier to argue

WHAT DIFFERENCE CAN IT POSSIBLY MAKE, HOWARD?

Still, I've gotten pissed about the election and have been writing an Angry Old Elector Blog

Nazi-Schmazi.blogspot.com

As Long as Donald Loves His Mother

about how uncomfortable I feel about der Drumpfmann possibly ascending to the throne ... as a Clownish Little Rich Boy who Would be King!

Come visit, now: Y'hear!

All Things Must Pass ... but while they last!

Last Quarter? We do get to be Grandma and Grandpa ... that's pretty cool. We have 5 grand-daughters and a grand-son ... young still .... oldest is only 17 and the youngest is almost 7. Every one of them ... what's the expression? bundles of joy. Well, most of the time. 

It's really just one occasion that got to me, recently. M and I drove NorthEast for about 300 miles ... M has a younger sib who has a child just getting married. The youngest of the GSpawns had arrived with her parents and we met them ... the Sib, her husband, our 50 year old with spouse and their little princess. Some of us walked to the beach ... it really smelled ... New England Purple Tide, or something. Played a bit on the beach ... what a hoot.

But it was walking back. The little kid musta been looking for a kickback. Her Dad and my young Brother-in-law were walking ahead and we were singing silly songs that we had written together. It's hot .... I'm in a-fib and the kid lets it rip:

Kid: Grandpa ... I wanna bring you a sandwich when you're 100 years old.

GP: That's pretty old.

Kid: Not for you, Grandpa.

GP: So, what kinda sandwich.

Kid: It doesn't matter. You're just more fun ... 

crazier but more fun ... than all the others.

They really know how to get to ya! I think they read the Shop-Manuals on how Grandmas and Grandpas are assembled. Over the years, I've treated a lot of people who see no reason to go on ... life had become extremely painful. And, indeed, life is painful. Still,  there are moments when standing erect on the surface of this planet makes so much sense. 

And when your Grandpa sometimes dresses up like Donald Trump, it ain't all that easy.

Matter and Anti-Matter

Does it make a difference to those of us in life's Last Quarter whether Mr. Trump or Sen.-Sec'y Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders is elected to the Presidency of the United States? And if so, why does it? The Narcissistic King of France ... did he have it right that "apres moi la deluge" ... that there really is nothing that follows me ... Ah! And, if so, what follows from that conclusion? What IS the problem with a little pathological narcissism from one candidate or another? It was during one of the previous elections that someone -- I think quite smartly -- noted that anyone who imagines they are fit to lead the Free World is arguably too narcissistic to do so.

So, what possible difference does it make? After all, a goodly percentage of us Fourth Quarter folk will be dead before the next 8 years pass by? What difference can it possibly make whether healthcare is a right or a commodity? What's the big deal if the oceans come ten miles inland? The World did just fine (Well, not!) when everybody believed in the 6-Day story of Creation and Darwin's theory of the adaptive survival of the fittest hasn't brought peace to the world. What difference can it make whether Science plays any role in public policy or if the Earth remains habitable? Whether our Great-Grandchildren can still play outside and breathe? We won't be there or, at any rate, won't be around for long. As Isaiah (22) suggests:

Eat your meats and drink your wine ... 

Go eat and drink for tomorrow we die.

אכל בקר ושתות יין

אכול ושתו כי מחר נמות

Appears to be an old suggestion.

Why do things matter, at all. Why lead anything approximating an ethically-sound life? Why not cheat? And from whence this sense that things matters? Is there a word for this? There is a word for the experience among those withdrawn from the World of relations or those withdrawn into depression ... anhedonia ... It means an inability to experience pleasure in our own world.  Various dictionaries do give possible near-synonyms for the expression "it doesn't matter." Among them:

• don't botherstar
• don't concern star

• drop itstar
• ignore itstar

• it's all rightstar
• let it gostar

• nothingstar
• stopstar

But none of these quite capture the whole enchilada.  In Mathematics, there were those who sought to define everything and who ran into what they would come to call "primitive" notions. Membership of an element in a set was one such idea. "a belongs to Set A" ... means, perhaps, "a is a member of Set A" or "a is in Set A" ... but such attempts at definition were, after all is said and done, just other ways of saying the same thing ... were no help in providing a definition. The statement that:

"A cat is a furry quadripedal omnivorous mammalian pain-in-the-ass" ... comes closer to definition. One defines by locating the thing or experience or idea in the intersection of several or many broader categories. But, of course, that could describe my GuntherDog, as well ... he's furry enough ... he manages, still, to ambulate on fours, he'll eat just about any shit even if he prefers cat-shit, and he's a pain in the butt, alright. So, maybe I shouldn't feel all that bad. 

My Grandfather used to say from his language ... תאמר פארקערט ... maybe it's better to look at it upside down. Einstein's favorite philosopher Spinoza had it similarly: "all definition is negation." Maybe it's best to say what it's not. 

So, maybe it would be better to begin with what doesn't matter or what matters little. Maybe. Like, for me, it matters little what I choose to wear or how my hair is combed or whether some bits of food hang from my mustachio during eating in a public or a private space. Or upside down, the sharing of kindnesses matters to me a lot. Or maybe the best we can do is the Spelling Bee system: 

"Would you put that in a sentence for me?"

or alternatively:

"Accept it ... this whole matter of "What things matter?" is very idiosyncratic" 

... not "idiot-syncratic," maybe but idiosyncratic, that is, connected to the individual or individual tastes? Is this a cop-out? Maybe. What one can do no more than to say what matters to them. I suppose this is a matter of "categories," as I think of a category as something that divides some part of our World into two parts ... 

the part that I like or admire or that matters to me 

and 

the part I don't like or don't admire and that doesn't matter to me.

So, lemme end with a story someone told me about their Aunt Rose's Categories. David was a man in his 40's with a wife and kids. He met with the matriarch of his family to, as we say, "come out."(To get the full flavor, one might read the Aunt Rose part with her Eastern European accent that she brought here to America when she emigrated from her homeland).

This was the reported conversation:

David: Aunt Rose, I'm leaving Rachel and the kids 

and moving out to be with Heinrich.

Aunt Rose: YOU'RE MOVING IN MIT A NAZI!?

Maybe I'll come back to this, soon. But for the time being, I can say little more than "Some things matter to me and some don't."

"The Counterpuncher" and the DT's

Among the many lessons one might take away from the public spectacle that was the Republican Primary, lives the following proverb, of sorts (as it is not written in II Corinthians): 

The Lord allows for but 
One Counterpuncher. 
All others, sayeth god, 
are False Counterpunchers 
and 
should be stoned by the congregation.

Here, in the United States, we who dared ... we. at least, who possessed  the Gastro-Intestinal Fortitude to follow the near-24-7 run-up to the Republican Convention  ...  bore witness to the behaviors of a wealthy man (one with the Power that Wealth Bestows) verbally beat up on his competition and explain these behaviors as the expected result of being Treated Unfairly. We heard his claim that his many, many insults, rumors and innuendos were all expectable reactions to his having been treated Unfairly ... 

"I love everybody 
but 
I AM The Counterpuncher!"

DT showed little fancy footwork but repeated arguments in favor of Reactive Countermeasures, that is, Shots to the Head of:

The Rigged RNC,  

The Nauseating Weakness of a Bush,  

Lying Ted whose Dad "could -- I suppose -- be" a President Killer, 

Corrupt Hillary who encouraged her Husband's infidelities, 

Little Marco and his funny shoes, 

The Misrepresenting News Agencies and their Menstruating Newscasters, 

Carson's Questionable Kingdom Hall Christianity, and 

Obama's Unwavering UnAmericanism.

All the while, this Singular Man presented himself as the One, the Only, the Greatest, and the Most Successful and indubitably the Great Solution Finder who could solve all the problems that the West faced, including the need to vanquish all enemies of the US of A and Being the Greatest Deal Broker on trade deals with China ... like nobody has done before. 

Many are those who have demonstrated the shifting sands on which Trump's edifice ... his claims to the throne ... is built. I'll be satisfied to fascinate about this notion that one's acts of aggression appear in and only appear in response to nastiness coming from the outside ... from the Other.

Let me start with some examples.

1. The abusing spouse in a bad relationship, for instance, claims that (s)he would never have beaten or verbally abused or shot or left their partner had the partner not been such a you-name-it. Tit-for-Tat, you know!

2. The bar-room-brawler woulda nevah started that fight had Johnnie not taken m'chair.

3. The screaming parent would absolutely never have screamed the way they did had the kid handed in his homework on time or taken their plate from table to sink.

4. The road-rager would nevah have smashed his truck into that little convertible, had the rich old bastard in the car not placed two fingers to his lips and appeared to have said: kiss-to-ya, Baby!

5. We all know that the cheating spouse would never have done so had their partner been a better partner.

6.  And on a much grander scale, one Country would never-ever invade their neighbor gratuitously ... without reason.

I've long found it fascinating that the Old Testament includes no record  of any one taking responsibility for their actions until Genesis 37 ... two thirds of the way through that book on the World and its Begats. And then, it is only when the Tamar is about to be stoned that Judah, the father of her two dead husbands, utters the words:

She is more righteous (in this matter) than I.  .... צדקה ממני

Adam blames Eve for dinner ... Cain owns up to no responsibility for whacking Abel ... Abraham never apologizes for putting his wife or at least her honor in jeopardy by his repeated lies ... Isaac never apologized to Jacob ... Rebekkah never to Esau ... for showing favoritism to the other twin ... and Jacob shows no remorse for tricking his Brother and Father. Sad, aye?

Anyhow! No such variance offered -- this past week -- by DT for his Good Budd, Lyin' Ted, Putative Son of one of JFK's Conspiratorial Assassins. DT goes after Cruz's wife, accuses him not of Lying but of being the Biggest Liar Ever in Politics, and then does his signature thing ... starting rumors.

' I mean I have no evidence that 

Ted's Father was there with Lee Harvey Oswald 

but I haven't heard Ted denying it.'

It's been a familiar game with DT ... the whole Birther Thing, for instance.  Or Hillary Clinton as enabler.

' I mean I have no evidence that 

Hillary wasn't behind Bill's thing with Monica

and I don't know how many other women

but I haven't heard Corrupt Hillary denying it.'

' I mean I have no evidence that 

Hillar's e-mails didn't cost American Lives

but I haven't heard Corrupt Hillary denying it.'

So, along comes Cruz whose policies and demeanor are neither comfortable for me. Ted doesn't or, if you like, refuses to endorse this "Little Orange Man" (as he has been described by Elizabeth Warren ... errr ... Pochahontis, I mean). And note, his behavior is viewed by what appears to be a large chunk of Republicans as cavalierly and gratuitously aggressive. ... worthy of condemnation and labels of party infidelity.

So lemme get it, Donald, m'Boy. Your aggression is reactive ... Ted's is cavalier. You attack his wife's and father's decency and it's reactive. Sen. Cruz advises people to vote their conscience and the Party comes down on him like he just farted in church. I could go on but I hope I've offered-up the idea that at least some organizations accept but One Counterpuncher and see all others as fonts of gratuitous aggression ... that is, aggressive behavior that's neither catalyzed by the other's destructive actions nor, therefore, justified.

BTW ... As to the claim that Kaisich and Cruz and Bush failed to live up to their signed pledge ... I'm not trained in the Law but it seems quite apparent to me that if a customer orders a hamburger in MacDonald's and while it's being cooked up begins to call me a Suck-Ass-Pig, my obligation to give him his piece of dead bull and the Bull's Grieving Mother's Curdled Milk with yesterday's Greens might be called into question.

I feel sad that Ruth Bader Ginzburg felt it incumbent upon her and her office to draw-back her (may I call it) Political Incorrectness in her description of this man who disavows any need for PC, who promises all and shows nothing but bravado and nastiness. I feel sad that good people in the Republican Party are willing to support such a man as Donald Trump in the name of party unity.

Exodus 23: Do not go after the many to sin ...  אחרי רבים לחטת

**********************

I fear a World led by a Snake Oil Salesman ... Meantime? I got dem Ole DT Blues!

"The Kindness of Strangers"

How can we live without such kindnesses and how rich can our life possibly be without recognizing those kindnesses when they occur. Yesterday, I had been rescheduled for a 'down periscope' ... a visual look down my gullet into my duodenum ... an endoscopy. I had been scheduled some two months ago but a nasty upper respiratory thing intruded. Yesterday looked like it might not be "a go" either, as I was in a cardiac arrhythmia ... by my Cardiologist said something like "What the hell!" Don't get me wrong ... my cardiologist/electrophysiologist, Josh, and his Physician's Assistant or Nurse Practitioner (I'm not good at remembering the difference and both seem among the best practitioners who treat me in this curious Last Quarter of Life) ... are kind and empathic Souls. I do betimes wish that the Cardio was older and didn't look so much as he learned how to shave in the past several months but he really is a grown-up and a kind Soul.

So, M drove me and -- as these things go -- had to sign a document that she would say.

Kindness 1: Spouses, lovers or friends who choose to stay with us ISOOF (In Spite of Our Flaws).

There was a lady ... maybe 50's ... who I'd been talking to over the matter of the arrhythmia. She took one look at my T-Shirt and greeted me warmly. It read:

IT'S A

COVITZ

THING

YOU WOULDN'T 

UNDERSTAND.

Kindness 2: M was showing 'good-planning ahead' by buying me a T-Shirt that will come in handy if I'm ever found wandering about, looking like a lost Puppy Dog and not quite remembering my name. She has promised that the nest shirt will have my address and phone number on the back, just in case I decide to bolt-freightened from the pursuing 911 respondents. 

Kindness 3: The lady who checked me in, just by recognizing me with good humor and a smile and willing to join me in everyday silliness, showed me this third kindness.

I was brought to a room for vitals and questions ... lots of questions that in spite of my age I could answer. I suppose it's anxiety but my Play-Level rises in situations where my Heart is running amok and people are gonna be poking and prodding and invading my innards. Nurse Becka was -- even if a bit hesitant at first to join my romp -- soon prepared to smile. She was the one who would stick me with an IV so that the Anesthetist could get me to shut up.

Kindness 4 and 5. Nurse Becka, I suppose, coulda shut me down but chose, instead, to allow some play and was by-far the best sticker who has ever stuck me. No pain ... no black-and-blue marks.

M stayed with me through my bad jokes, the Chief Anesthetist who had almost no humor in her visited and another woman (Nurse?) arrived and wheeled me into the PR (Procedure Room). I told her she looked tired and she agreed that she was. She would assist in the PR and introduced me to the Nurse Anesthetist who was thoroughly without humor and never cracked a smile. He was a Guy ... he was really a Guy ... I wouldn't hire him as a Barkeep. But then Dr. D. arrived. She had done my first Combo (Up Periscope and Down Periscope) maybe 10 or 15 or more years ago. Back then, she came in, introduced herself and must've recognized my anxieties:

Dr. Covitz ... You have nothing to worry about. 

I and my scopes are only going down 4 feet and up about 10.

Kindness 6. Dr. D. is through and through another Fourth Quarter Kind Soul who is willing to show her humanity without hesitation. It must be hard being a Gastro, these days, and spending many hours each week looking up and looking down through scopes and yet ...

Blessed are you God who has kept practicing some Docs 

who have maintained their humanness. 

I woke up to Nurse Chris in the RR (Recovery Room). M arrived pretty soon and explained that as I was coming into my own after "procedures" (I do wish they wouldn't call them "Procedures"), I was likely to do Horizontal Stand-Up and the Brooklyn in me might well surface. It did and the two women were willing to play along. My first memory of learning about nursing came in the late 50's when my Sister, another Nurse Rebecca, came home from Nursing School and explained that sometimes, after surgery or whatever, men might have erections and her teachers suggested using a Ruler to smack down these post-operative protuberances. 

Kindness 7. My acting out wasn't penile but silly humor and both M and Nurse Chris welcomed it.

 Blessed are you God who has kept practicing some 

                                                             nurses who are willing 

                                      not to confuse humor and play with something bad

                                            and who has created understanding spouses. 

                                                             And God Bless M, too!

"Play Ball"

A colleague was describing his family's vacation ... when he was done listing all his Ports of Call and the accomodations, I was exhausted. It was like listening to Donald Trump drone on about how wonderful and fabulous everything he touches becomes after his touch. I heard nothing from my friend about the people part of this holiday. How were the silly moments? Was the sex any good? Did folks get along? If there were kids there, did they have time to play? No-no-no!

"The food was spectacular. The views? to die for."

I recall several recent occasions when friends have invited me into their new kitchens ... overhauled ...  special refrigerators and stoves that do things never done before ... I'm not certain, indeed, that they can be called by such mundane titles .... they're clearly more that places to prepare keep or to prepare foods.

Then, there are those friends who have spent three times what I spent on my first new car on a mattress. Whoa! Like the adverts on television where the men and women sleep perfect sleeps and have perfect bodies. I find myself wondering if those bodies ever touch? ... If they did, would they still be so perfect? so chiseled? ... Maybe they bathe in different claw-foot tubs like on the commercials for men's sex drugs? Who knows?

Hey! Can anyone still play? Another brief example.

Some years ago, M and I took one of our grand-daughters to a baseball game ... St. Louis at Philadelphia. It was hot ... sweaty hot. The game hadn't begun and the guy in front of us had already gulped five tall beers. Game still not begun and he turns around and says:

Fan: "Anybody says anythin' good about Pujolz 

(a world class player for the opposing team) 

and I'll make his face look like yesterday's tacos."

Grand-daughter: "Grandpa ... Can we go home pretty soon?"

Me: "You bet, Sweetie."

What is it so problematic about play? How is it that we human-folk can't get together and play like puppies? Howl like Bassets? No wonder videos of playful kittens go viral. Going to parties almost requires 3 alcoholic drinks or -- in the supposed good old days of our young adulthood -- the best grade of "grass." ... Apparently ...  Can't get together -- we humanfolk -- without a sacrifice without blemish and, notably, one that warms us up or burns with intoxicating fumes or something.

About this time, each year, I spend at least some days on a beach along the Atlantic Coast of Virginia. Grandchildren are usually present. The Haute Cuisine? pretty absent in this backwater town. My six grandchildren remember with joy and a bit of loving derision towards Grandpa the leftover spaghetti sandwiches of one Summer and my "thing" with spinach and blue cheese, during another. The family's collective memory includes the fact that one of our grandchildren was conceived in this same town just the day after the father-to-soon-be floored his father-in-law with a tennis ball to the groin. There were the mornings when (then only) Dad would drag the kids to see the sunrise and wade out to the sandbar to collect conch shells. There was the time a French visitor who was called for a reason beyond my ken "Big Dick Nick" or maybe it was "Little Dick Nick" dragged a Hungarian not-quite-inlaw into the water ... and many, many were the battles of the water balloons and supersized waterguns and garden hoses. There was cooking in the kitchen and generations organized to chase others through the dunes. Bike rides to nowhere, in particular. Oh! And there was grandpa's favorite beach toy ... the bucket.

It may not be well known that the little green or red or blue bucket is among the best Salt-Water-Delivery Systems. Fill it up at water's edge and let it rip ... water flies at least 25 feet if you're any good at all ... and if you're clever you get to sneak up behind the unsuspecting and dowse them.

Oh! And Scrabble games have words previously unknown to these shores and sometimes to dictionaries, in general.

This year, the youngest grand-spawn who is just learning how to do back-flips made up new lyrics for George Gershwin's "Summertime" ... lyrics that I'm confident she knows won't bring the same smile to her first-grade teacher that they brought to Grandpa. She belted out her scatalogical scat like a seasoned Sophie Tucker:

Poopie-time

And the livin' is squeezie.

Poops are ploppin'

And the Pee-pee is ffffine ...

Y'know your poop is rich 

And that Pee-pee's good lookin'

So hush little poopies-and-pee-pees

Do-on't you cry!

So ... as I sit here at the World's edge ... in the Last Quarter but feelin' good: I'm confident that ... there are more lyrics to come and new generations with bucket-fulls to be flung ...

Play ball!

"We are family!"

We did real good, M and  I, with our three kids and their 6 spawn, too. Nevermind the five family dogs ... Kazimierza, Schreber, Shayna Rosa the Wonda Dog, Mitzvah, and the now-aging GuntherDog ... and the Cats ... Hans (shoulda been called Gretel), Munkacz, Matyos, Emily, and Pretty Girl Freud.  Then there are the Grandcats and Grand-dogs, a number of which have bunked down with us for varying periods of time. Lives are lived as they reproduce patterns from generation to generation ... 

The past few weekends have seen many ... sometimes all of the human-us ... celebrating together ... Pretty cool, if someone were to ask me. I've known many families that have fractured ... not only producing new and independent families but new tribes that cannot live in proximity to each other. M and I have been able to make space for our generations who choose to hang out close to us. Lucky, that way, I suppose. Two weekends ago, we all gathered to celebrate the 5th grandchild's pubertal initiation rite ... her bas Mitzvah. Not one of these big bashes with dance parties ... no black-tie optional or otherwise. No band ... no orchestra. Some religious services that were quite moving, even if the type of observance in each of the four separate families are quite different. And some food and good speeches about connection.

It's ok to visit another's way of living without getting lost in comparisons. For me that's close to my notion of health ... the acceptance of others' differences. 

This past weekend, most of us gathered for swimming and eating and then on Sunday, my one and only son-in-law agreed to accompany me on what was planned to be a 26 mile bike ride in 90+ degree weather over hill and dale into the city and back with a group of Mad Dogs/No Englishmen! I surmised he was chosen to be witness and photo-journalist should I succumb to the heat. And it was a good thing he came and even better that God saw fit to give my 1974 Raleigh International a flat tire shortly before the half-way mark. I had already jump-started my heart into a bout of a-fib and might well have been foolish enough to ride on had I brought along a spare inner tube, ... instead of Al, Father of three of my Grandspawn, a Philosopher by training and smart enough to nudge towards choosing life.

While waiting for our Redeemer, M, to pick us up, I suggested that Al take a picture of me lying at the feet of the statue of the cinematic boxer, Rockie Balboa. It would be a kind of modern Pieta. Me lying in the yogic Corpse Pose in front of a great Mother! Didn't happen, though. M arrived ... and I and Al survived. It must've been twelve years ago when he was sent on a similar mission on a winters 10k. We survived that, too, and managed to finish the race in 7th and 8th position ... from the end, that is! Family lore is that we finished ahead of 4 newly- postoperative knee replacements and two dead folk!

Family? Pretty cool, indeed!

"Tyrany of the Majority" redux

The Hebrews spoke of "after the many to act badly" (Exodus) (אחרי רבים לרעת) ... The Greeks called it ochlocracy (ὀχλοκρατία) ... The Romans thought similarly (ochlocratia) ... Here, in the West, we think of  mob rule or the Tyrany of the Majority. 

How to create a system of governance that listens to the aggregate but keeps in mind the rights of minorities? For $1,000 or more per ticket, I could go see the rap-version of this on Broadway ... of how the American Founding Fathers tried to work around this obvious gliche that exists in Democracies. The requirement for supermajorities in certain actions taken by a legislative body or regs for the pas de deux done by two such law-making bodies, in concert ... these were established in the Western Representative Democracies to protect the populace from 

The Supermajorities of the Senate, the requirement for even bigger majorities to over-ride vetoes of the Executive Branch ... all have the same general goal ... .

Curious, then, it is that a simple majority in the House of Representatives can block even votes on legislation that a supermajority might favor. 50+% of the House can block any legislation that might limit the availability of certain types of guns or certain weapons to certain people even if 75+% of the population is in favor of such laws.

Complicated, isn't it? The Second Amendment protects by permitting the population to maintain armaments. A good thing, I would think. Wouldn't want a 3 year old armed with AR-15's or a psychologically troubled adult to own RPG's (Rocket Propelled Grenades). Wouldn't be great for your local Chevy dealer to sell Surplus Sherman Tanks to any of us ... or so I would think.

Still, we know of countries where dissidents are given labels and incarcerated in Gulags ... and the US knew times when dissidents were followed, investigated and scapegoated.

I feel too old to figure this out ... to consider all the complexities. Still, I'm plagued by two thoughts:

(1) Some cancers have gone too far to treat ... 300,000,000 guns in the USA? Maybe the dangers inherent to this arming of a nation is irreversible? I dunno. 

(2) I find it disturbing that a simple majority in the American House is curiously capable of shutting down the introduction of any laws that might tweak the Right to Bear Arms.

The Tyranny of the Majority is a knife that cuts both ways.

There was a discussion among the Masters of the Babylonian Exile. One group of Fundamentalists was moved to cite Scripture in its arguments that "The words of this Law shall never leave your mouth" (לא ימוש ספר תורה זה מפיך), while another group thought it wise to enact in such decisions Common Sense (דרך ארץ). What should we do when intuitive common sense goes against Constitutional Fundamentalism?

I dunno.

"Almost Cut my Hair" ... Well actually ...

People keep asking me why? It's more or less only M, my closest of friends and my siblings who have ever known me to sit in a barber-shoppe chair and get a professional haircut. Since the late 1960's, I have cut my hair with a scissors, looking in bathroom mirrors. Then ... I think it was two weeks ago, I went to a book signing ... Great book, btw, by James Rahn ... a kind of cross between autobiography and the history of a writing workshop he began some 25+ years ago and continues to run. It ends with ten short stories by some of his seminarians ... among which are some well-known names. 

But all this is besides-the-point ... non-sequitur. James recommended that I check out the pictures online of the evening book-signing. And THERE! was one of me! I told M that I looked like a mostly bald and bloated and heightened troll with thin hair wildly falling off the baldness. I asked her why she hadn't told me that I was bald ... hell ... 

"Why didn't you tell me that I was getting to be more than bulky ... 

and more than a bit slovenly ... 

and arguably bald, dammit?"

Well, she hadn't and there I was somewhere in the middle of the Fourth Quarter looking like a slovenly oversized troll. Odd because I have spent a couple of Quarters preaching against "why" questions. One of my favorite examples were the questions parents asked their adolescent kids at 1:09 AM on a Saturday night with echoed voices bouncing off the living room walls:

"WHY ... ARE ... YOU ... HOME ... 10 minutes 

AFTER ... OUR ... AGREED-UPON CURFEW?"

Why queries make it awful difficult to answer with any degree of honesty. Just imagine:

"Mom, Dad ... You know I love you." 

(M&D hate you right now, Kid!)

"And I was in the door by 1:08." 

(Wrong time to quibble, Kid. The Gas pellets are about to fall.)

"Dear Mom-Dad (you really are one person, aren't you?... )

I was having a really good time smoking pot and making out 

(that is what you called it middle-last-Century) with Heather 

and I really didn't give two-shits with whether you were worried 

though 

I wasn't keen 

on gettin' reamed

or tag-teamed 

by Shirley and Sheldon."

(Kid, never use the names your parents got 

from their parents ... bad idea!!) 

"So, I decided to continue to "Carry-On, young Soldier" 

and Heather showed every indication of approval and, 

point-of-fact, "Carry-On, young Soldier" 

were almost her exact words, barring a different

predicate." (Kid, M&D could give the same two shits 

about your stellar grammar, at this point.)

"Now, I'm tired and heading up to get some shut-eye ... "

(Y'think, Kid) 

Y'might both consider the same." 

Truth is what is "two-shits" to the Kid can quickly turn into Deep Shit  if he tries honestly answering a Why Question. But, y'gets my drift, don't ya, and, anyway, I don't have a clue of why I walked into a barber shop a week ago. When I got in there, a woman asked nicely what I wanted. ... 

"I want a haircut." 

"First one this month?"

"What year were you born, Miss?"

"1967, if you must know."

I explained. It was 1969 or 1970. My sons are a couple/three years old and I walk into a Barber Shoppe next to the Blue Galaxy Diner on Main Street in Buffalo. The Blue Galaxy? Where M and I ate breakfast one AM and a bunch of scruffs drove up in a pickup or a funeral flower car selling their records out of the back. They called themselves the Grateful Dead ... it was another era and I was an advanced doctoral student in Mathematics with a coif appropriate to the times. Kids got haircuts ... maybe $1.50 each and I asked the Barber if he had time for me.

I sat down and got wrapped.

"How much?"

"$135."

"$135? How come."

"Well, I just calculated that you likely haven't had a haircut in 20 months ... 

$5 and a tip for each haircut you shoulda had ... 

You can count that high, can't ya?!"

"I don't got $135?"

"Then, Kid (I was the Kid, then), y'pay for your Kids' Kuts and get lost."

"So, y'see, Young Lady, 

my last haircut was when you were a couple-years-old 

in 1969 or thereabouts." 

But who knows? Maybe, I decided to be shorn feeling dirtied by the political process going on. Truth? I've been struggling. I'm proud to be an American and that pride grew with the 7+ years of Obama's presidency. I identified with his "no-Drama" and careful thinking (whether I agreed with a specific conclusion or not) and with his family. I was quite drawn to Michelle, the kids and his Mother-in-Law gracing the White House and protecting it from scandal. I feel grateful to him that he, as the Capitol Steps singing group phrases, that he kept his "Bowsers Truckled." I'm still angry at Bill Clinton and blame him for Gore's defeat in 2000. Taking on the Presidency is, indeed, something like joining a religious order or, for that matter, being a therapist. Those who rely on you need you not to sully yourself at their peril. 

And Trump rhymes with Hump.

Dear God, God of my forefathers, King of the Universe ... 

protect me and my grandkids from Little Rich Kids grown 

to Pathological Narcissists. 

Now, I need to lose 35 pounds.

And I don't have a F...ine clue about WHY I had my hair cut!

Trump, trump, trump; the boys are marching

The Union prisoners sitting in their dirty cells waiting for the Civil War to end  and for their liberators to flow in from the North would sing:

In the prison cell I sit,

Thinking Mother dear, of you,

And our bright and happy home so far away,

And the tears they fill my eyes

Spite of all that I can do,

Tho' I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.

      Chorus:

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,

Cheer up comrades they will come,

And beneath the starry flag

We shall breathe the air again,

Of the freeland in our own beloved home.

It's the middle of June and Election Day draws closer, each day. I tell myself that no Idiot Rich Kid (IRK) could take over the Presidency of the United States of America .... I tell myself that no poseur could convince a plurality of Americans that their promises of Pie in the Sky that only they can bake are realistic ... that no such pretender ... no such Deuteronomic False Prophet could trick so many. Yet, I see that many are those that will follow one such as he.

I suppose by coincidence, a number of people have recently bemoaned that folk just don't return calls, lately. A small thing. A trivial thing. But some indication of just how rude we have become. One,
nowadays, feels it's just fine to be rude ... killing has become a daily event. Call MacCain a loser ... Hilary Clinton? a lying swine! Attack all who may mourn for those others who we have killed ... we only mourn those who fall who wear our own uniforms. That IS our tragedy, I suppose.

Sophocles wrote a play about a young woman engaged to a prince who mourns a brother who fought on the wrong side of a war and is sentenced, therefore, to death. 'The President's apology tour makes him a traitor,' says IRK, the Little Orange Man. 

I took a professional haircut for the first time in over 45 years. People have asked me "why"? I tell them that I don't know. Am I celebrating a period of mourning? Maybe. For all the dead in Orlando and those in Iraq and Syria and the Sudan and Israel and Gaza. For the threatened death of the American Dream of decency and kindness.

Trump! Trump! Trump! The Wrong Boys are Marching to the Bog!

Or, at least, I fear that the footfalls I hear in the distance do not presage redemption!

Trump! Trump! Counter-Trump!

Among the less celebratory perceptions of the Fourth Quarter has to be the recognition that the world hasn't changed. I think it was Avraham Friedman (who blogs from the Middle East mostly about Viktor Frankl and the ideas that grew in Frankl during his years in WWII camps) who cited one of his students as reporting that 'birthdays are those days when the Creator has indicated by the birthday-person's birth that the World just couldn't continue without them.' Maybe the Fourth Quarter begins with the recognition that -- in spite of the fact that you haven't, yet, brought peace to the world and cured cancer -- the World will, indeed, go on without you and that if the Creator thought you were going to change it all, She oopsed.

So, I've lived for all this time and politicians are still hoodwinking the public and, likely, lying to themselves. I've preciously suggested that the National Debt might be remediable were we to charge admission to public floggings of all those who intentionally tell mistruths to the voting public.

I don't wish to diagnose Mr. Trump (DT) but I do have reactions to what he says and how typical it is for his statements to represent others as having done what many believe he does regularly. I suppose, that is, that the most forthright comment he makes is that he is "a Counterpuncher" ... but in a different sense than the one he uses. 

His most recent attack on a judge whose parents were Mexican immigrants is not untypical. Let me explain. It works something like this:

******************

Punch: DT promises to bring the Mexican Government to its knees by forcing it to build the now infamous DT's wall and suggests that that Government chooses to send all its dregs to the USA. In short, he depreciates the power and the decency of Others ... an aggressive act.

Counterpunch: DT concludes that the judge/offspring of one so-aggressed-upon is incapable of judicious thinking because DT has aggressed upon him and he, the judge, is therefore predisposed to aggress against DT.

**********************

Let's see: According to his reasoning, Mexican, Women, Muslims and Democrats would all need to recuse themselves in legal/judicial matters related to DT's alleged fraud in the Trump University case.  It would be facile, too, to say something insulting about all other groups, while he's at it.

But lemme give some other examples:

DT is an extreme pragmatist ... the kindest way I can describe someone who will say whatever it takes to get a job done. It is not so much the Pragmatism is un-American but our Constitution and its Bill of Rights demand of us that we temper that Pragmatism with Rules. DT must have a degree of intelligence and a basketful of guile to accomplish what he has. 

***************

Punch: Like many of us -- myself included -- we did what we could to avoid military service during the Viet Nam era. They were, indeed, complicated times and the issues surrounding such decisions were equally difficult to parse. M & I were "Waist Deep (not) in the Big Muddy" during those years but in diapers. DT, I can only surmise, may well have been among those who had connections that permitted him a pass. I don't know.

Counterpunch: Sen. McCain is not a War Hero. War Heroes are those who don't get captured, according to DT.

****************

Punch: DT has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to single out women for derisive comments, foul and demeaning descriptions and attempts to undermine their careers. Undoubtedly, he has helped women, as well.

Counterpunch: Let's talk about Bill Clinton. By the way, I do hold Clinton responsible for Gore's loss in 2000 ... I can't help believing/considering that he he kept his trousers buckled, many -- even if a small minority -- would have voted for Gore and, perhaps, the mess we are in would be less of a mess. Perhaps?

*****************

Punch: The Drumpf's came from Germany, apparently .... a country that was, indeed, brought to its knees by the Allies ... twice. I don't know what the youngster/man thought of himself in the post-War era growing up in Queens. If your grandpa speaks with a middle-European accent, who are you? Who knows? Was there Shame? Guilt? Reparations such as many very wealthy people offer (the Koch brothers are a simple example or the Kimmels or the owners of Comcast who support the Arts and build Hospitals) are not familiar to me with the DT's name upon them.

Counterpunch: Implying that Obama is not eligible to serve as President ... not an American.

*******************

Punch: DT's rhetorical device of denying and saying something at the same time is well-known to the listening public. 

"I'm not saying that s/he's A-B-or-C but she's at least A-C and maybe D-C!"

"I'm not sayin' you should beat up these protesters but back-in-the-day, they'd be carried out."

"I'm not sayin' that he was born in Kenya, but ..."

The famous list goes on.

I think it's fair to say that DT often peppers his talk with conflicting or paradoxical positions.

I could but I won't .... Inuendo but not ....

Counterpunch: "Lying Ted" ... "Lying Hillary" .... 

**********************

Punch: DT very cleverly gets all the major news networks to cover his campaign in what seems obvious was an enormously unbalanced way. He uses outrageous behaviors and comments to accomplish this. The Left and the Right give him 10's of Millions of Dollars of air-time during which they inevitably talk about the over-the-top and offensive comments he has made. The other 20 candidates (D and R, alike) are arguing about quotidian and boring 'crap' like policy. The Networks take the bait.

Counterpunch: "The Networks are against me" and each and every comment is permitted to more or less fall by the wayside. Can we really have a president who says the things he has about women? I suppose we can, after all he's been treated unfairly. ... OMG!

**********************

I welcome others to send other examples which I shall append in your name (hhcovitz@aol.com) ... In any case, it is a disheartening component of Last Quarter living to see these same techniques used so openly with the public as they have been in many previous Strong-Man Led Regimes. Mid-Fourth-Quarter? and I've changed the World very little, if at all. I do hope I've on a much more local level influenced those people I've loved.

Glad, Sad or Mad?

(a picture of me without my masks ... )

These have been weeks of Glad and Sad. Throughout my ramblings on this blog since, I think 2011, I've revisited my sense of my and maybe Monty Python's sense of life ... mine acquired over the past seven decades. They don't have the feel to me of deep metaphysical truths espoused by students of Nietzsche, but maybe by Nietzsche, himself:

"You have your way;

I have mine.

As for the Perfect way

or the only way,

that doesn't exist."

Among the movies that have moved me is a feminist one about Antonia and her Line ... her daughter and grand-daughter. Maybe it's unfortunate that it mocks men a bit ... but we men and our need to prove ourselves is, in the end, a comically pathetic attempt to hide and deny vulnerability. In any case, in the film is a man ... a student of Nietzsche who cannot quite leave his home or his books ... his name in the film is Crooked Finger. Maybe he serves as counter-character to a crazed lady, la Luna, who howls at the Moon, at night. Crooked Finger suicides; la Luna keeps on howling!

As I said: these weeks have been Glad and Sad. M's baby Sister turned 60 and we travelled 300+ miles each way to celebrate. Just M and I in the roadster ... top down ... at one time leading a caravan of Corvettes anxious to pass our little German 2 seater. Just fun! ... Just Glad, though talking a bunch with each other about the loss of a 57 year old friend ... the one I spoke of last, I think. We talked, too, about a 37 year old daughter of a friend who tried very hard but couldn't make it and was dying ... and, indeed, died a day after we returned. Can't imagine what it's like for her Mom and Dad. Our youngest used to babysit for her ... a sweet young woman plagued by chemical Demons and undoubtedly demons of another ilk. 

I haven't been able to write very much, these days ... a problem as I need to speak in New York in just 4 or 5 days and I'm not certain what to say to the very Nietzschian audience of serious-minded thinkers. Maybe it has been watching GuntherDog struggling in these weeks. This morning, he did what he's been doing each morning, lately. Climbs down slowly from his chair and waits for me to pee and then walks out of our bedroom. He pauses, at just that moment, and walks towards a bedroom that is no longer occupied, sniffs a bit, and gets back on path towards the stairs. I've never been quite certain what to say to him, especially as his vocabulary is limited. He knows "upstairs" and barks and clammers to go up each evening after hearing that word. He knows "wanna pee" and it moves him to the door. "Couch" takes him out of my chair and onto the love seat where he and M snuggle. Still, he doesn't get: "They're no longer there." How do I explain these things to an Old Dog ... to myself ... I think Gunther is about 14.

So, back to the issues of my five simplistic truths.

First -- maybe foremost! If y'can't juggle Sad and Glad, you're phukt!

Second: The Canvas on which you get to Paint your Life is Framed and Finite;

it's very big but y'don't get to expand it.

Third: Life IS the Only Game in Town; 

Life IS the Only Thing that IS -- at least in these dimensions!

Fourth: Life is Meaningful only in the context of Relationships.

(if y'don't believe me, go read Kohelles, author of Ecclesiastes)

&

Fifth: For the Envious, Mad and Miserable cover Glad and Sad.

Frankly, I think Gunther and the 6 or so other Noble Beasts who have accompanied M and I on our journeys taught us all but the second of these so-called truths ... and the second, unfortunately, I won't be able to explain to him.

Alas!

So Little Time ... but So Much

Whenever I/we go to a funeral, the recognition of just how little time may be left becomes, at least momentarily, unavoidable. R led the good life. I never heard him say a bad word about someone in public. Seemed to love his Kids, adore his Wife and include his Mother in his posse. He was famously a good Doctor who took care of little babies for a living ... those endangered infants who came out just-too-soon ... some, no bigger than a guinea pig. I knew him to be uncomplicated. We attended a prayer-group, together ... I had come there about 17 years ago ... the year before, M had met him in the weeks after his Dad died on the same day that M's Dad, Murray, had. 

In those years, R would contribute to discussions ... always in straightforward yet fundamental ways. I recall one discussion where somehow the conversation about the Biblical text turned to the requisite need to think positively about one's illness. R wasn't suggesting a pessimistic attitude but one -- pointedly -- where the ill person didn't have the additional burden of being encouraged to believe that his illness was his fault. That stuck with me, as did, I think, everything else R said. He died two days ago. Yesterday, when I was discussing the weekly texts in front of the group, I heard myself saying and meaning that I remembered what he said more often than what I had. I then heard myself talking about Moses' Blessing/Curses at the end of Deuteronomy, a part of which has always moved me.

"May Z'vulon rejoice in his goings-out and Yisasschar in his ethereal studies."

One of the great commentaries of the 13th C, Simon Yitzchaki, comment, I thought I recalled (I haven't checked, yet) that these two Tribes of Jacob had an agreement. Z'vulon would indulge in what Simon Yitzchaki called in his Old French prakmatia ... pragmatics ... business ... earning a buck. In the meantime his successes would support Yisasschar's studies. Good enough, I recall thinking in Seminary in 1960, but Moses only addresses Z'vulon ... only bothers talking to the Pragmatist. I thought of R. as just such a pragmatist ... decent? always ... a gossip/trash-talker? never. Simpler, as the kids say it in describing the Mosaic distinction:

"Bullshit walks and action talks."

Or as the Poets might say it (like Lerner and Lowe):

"Don't talk of stars, burning above

If you're in love? show me!

Tell me no dreams, filled with desire

If you're on Fire, show me! 

... Don't talk of love ... Show me!"

As his sons and Medical Practice partner and Brother spoke, I was to learn much more about R than I knew from our brief supportive moments in our prayer groups; R or I or both of us would show up exhausted after days of caring for sufferers:

"Y'OK?"

"Pretty Good."

I recall no bullshit. And I only was privy to a part of his life ... At the memorial service (what in my tradition is called "accompanying the dead" on their final journey), I was to learn that R.  really listened to the Grateful Dead and Bruce Springstein on his way to driving his son last-minute 100 miles to see some great basket-baller? I had no idea that he loved Baseball, Football, was enamored of the local teams, skiing, Fly-Fishing, or that he had really encouraged his two sons to follow their dreams away from the Medical Practices that he, his Parents, and his wife had each built. I hadn't known that he and his wife met 40 years ago on maybe the first day of undergraduate studies or that  he had built what his brother called a Full Life that Lady? He used the same expression when he was first diagnosed with Cancer 23 years ago ... "I've had a good ride." I knew none of this. Nor did I know that he'd been invited to testify on a Medical Miracle in the Vatican.

I let the cat out of the bag, didn't I? .... started school 40 years ago? So R was 58 when he died and hadn't yet been blessed with playing in the Fourth Quarter, as I think of it.

But fullness of life isn't measured in linear and equal measures along a stick or by hand shaped pointers running about a circular dial. When at 57, the Cancer returned and even in the many months that followed, it could be said by those who knew him:

We loved you, R ... we'll miss you.

Y'did real good!