Perspective

  Regular and astute readers of these blogs, if any, may have noticed that my prediction concerning Donald Fucking Fucking Trump, and his ability to win the presidency, was a bit off. Tomorrow, the electors will meet across the nation to actually elect that... person: barring, of course, the miracle of thirty seven or more of his electors voting against Trump as the Constitution allows.
  I no longer hope for miracles.
  The time has come to look at the next President of the United States.
  Since the election, sane people have been hoping that sanity will somehow prevail in a Trump presidency. These people desperately wish that, when it comes to governing, the better angels of Trump's nature will guide him to lead the country in some semblance of a democratic republic. These people are wrong.
   In analyzing Trump, binocular vision is wasted. We have already seen all there is to see. Trump is a self-absorbed, preening buffoon. I will not be so niggardly as to limit him to only one dimension- or even two, but the man has no real depth. Trump is nothing more than a bas-relief, carved in sand.
 Trump is already hiding behind his many minions, who try to put a sane face on an insane man. The Trump presidency will be disastrous. How far will he go? What damage will he do? What price will we pay before he is finished?
  I no longer hope for miracles.

Acquainted with the night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.


I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.


I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,


But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky


Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Robert Frost

Always for Faith

Where No Mind Has Gone Before

  September eighth marked the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek. I believe that Gene Roddenberry sold the idea to the network as some sort of space western, but although there was plenty of action, and beautiful alien women, Roddenberry had bigger things in mind.
  Like much of the best science fiction, Roddenberry used alien cultures and far-off time frames to illustrate problems we faced on the good old planet earth. Star Trek played out hatred and bigotry, honor and deceit; democracy and empire; and xenophbia, all safely taking place hundreds of years and thousands of light-years away.
  Also, like some of the best science-fiction writers, Roddenberry had at least one amazing insight. Knowing that all of our history showed that whenever a more technologically advanced culture confronted a less advanced culture, the result (intent) was always conquest and exploitation, Gene Roddenberry gave Starfleet 'The Prime Directive'. A Starfleet  officer could never interfere in any way, even at risk of his own life,  with the natural development of less advanced civilizations. He gave his fictitious heroes a logical extension of what we like to think of as our own exceptionalism: a powerful force for good.
  I would like to think that if advanced alien civilizations exist, that they have somehow worked out their own version of Gene Roddenberry's great idea. Because, quite frankly, if they haven't, and we meet them- we're fucked.

Pull My Finger

  Ted "The immigrant" Cruz took the proverbial mile from Donald Fucking Trump tonight.
  Cruz had the opportunity, tonight, to endorse the nominee. He thought better of it.
  The speech that Cruz gave tonight was the first speech of the man who wants to control the right wing of the Republican party, whether the party goes along, or not.
  Ted Cruz is betting that Donald Fucking Trump will never be president, and that he will be the nominee in 2020. (Campaign slogan for the GOP in 2020: Hindsight.)
  (It is only due to neglect on my part that the last post at Paltering Fools, was the one that predicted what happened tonight, but if I had any readers, I bet they'd be impressed by my continuing perspicacity.) 
   
 

The Pasture

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan't be gone long.- You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I shan't be gone long.- You come too.
 Robert Frost

For Faith

Auld Lang Syne

April sixteenth marked 151 years since the death of Abraham Lincoln. It occurs to me that his party lasted about a hundred years after his death. Barry Goldwater's ascendance and Nixon's 'Southern Strategy' pretty much did the trick. Everything since then has been the writhing of a mortally wounded beast.

Not a Winner

  Tonight, Donald Fucking Trump lost the Wisconsin primary. The analysts seem to agree that it is now highly unlikely that he will be able to wrap up the nomination before the convention. A contested convention is a convention that Captain Comb-over cannot win. Ahhh. I had to savor that thought, but there are questions still. Does Trump incite violence at the convention? Does the Trumposaurus* go rogue, and run as a spoiler? Does Donald Fucking Trump learn a little humility and see the convention as a chance to grow as a human being? I'll bet two out of three, if anyone's asking.

*Trumposaurus: Picture Trump's big, ugly head on a T-Rex body. Because: small hands. 

Easter, 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed.
So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart.
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse-
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connally and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly;
A terrible beauty is born.
  William Butler Yeats

I have to thank Chris Matthews of MSNBC for reminding me of this, the hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising, which began Ireland's last climb to freedom. Matthews also quoted pieces of this poem, which is a favorite of mine. The history of Ireland is a history of oppression and repression and constant battle for liberty. Americans feel kinship with the Irish because of that.

Note: Although Easter Monday should always be celebrated for the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, Easter, itself falls on different dates each year. Today, April, 24th. is the actual hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Spring: Two Takes

        Spring

Fresh clean air
In its icycold purity
Is supplanted each day
By polluted wind
Growing hot and fetid
More and more                                                  

Daylight melts the ices
And life seethes in again
  Christopher Mahon
                                                                          Putting in the Seed

                                                          You come to fetch me from my work tonight
                                                          When supper's on the table, and we'll see
                                                          If I can leave off burying the white
                                                          Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
                                                          (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
                                                          Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea),
                                                          And go along with you ere you lose sight
                                                          Of what you came for and become like me,
                                                          Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
                                                          How love burns through the Putting in the Seed
                                                          On through the watching for that early birth
                                                          When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
                                                          The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
                                                          Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
                                                              Robert Frost

The Rose Tree

'O words are lightly spoken,'
Said Pearse to Connolly,
'Maybe a breath of politic words
Has withered our Rose Tree;
Or maybe but a wind that blows
Across the bitter sea.'

'It needs to be but watered,'
James Connolly replied,
'To make the green come out again
And spread on every side,
And shake the blossom from the bud
To be the garden's pride.'

'But where can we draw water,'
Said Pearse to Connolly,
'When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
There's nothing but our own red blood
can make a right Rose Tree.'
  William Butler Yeats

This poem is dedicated to Ireland, and every nation that has conquered tyranny, or will.

The Importance of Words

  Amongst all the fear mongering from the ironically named right wing, and the impassioned response of the left; we have forgotten something (if we ever knew it.) We have conflated invulnerability with invincibility. There are two things we must remember: We are invincible. We are not invulnerable.
  The United States is still, by far, the most powerful nation on earth. No nation or group of nations could defeat us. Terrorists? Zero chance. But by forgetting the difference between those two words, we give the terrorists their opening. For while we are, absolutely, invincible; as a free society we are also vulnerable-- we can be hurt. If we fail to make the distinction between the two, or worse-- if we come to believe that the two are inextricably combined, then we run the risk of becoming a closed, paranoid state, like so many others in history. And just as those preying on our fears seem to want.
  We can survive attack. We survived September 11th. We survived the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the massacre in San Bernardino. And we will survive the next attack when it comes. Just as the French survived the Paris attacks, as the British survived the London bombings, as the Spanish survived their attacks; and as every other nation has survived. It is only by giving in to fear and stooping to their level that we will let the terrorists win.
  Benjamin Franklin said that those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither. I would like to remind the cowards and fear-mongers among us that the first duty of the government is not to protect us at any cost. The first duty of our government is to protect our freedom at any cost.
 

For Donald Fucking Trump

              Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works ye Mighty and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Don't Take Them for Granite

To the first-in-the-nation primary state:

"Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils."
   General John Stark; a toast to his comrades-in-arms on the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the Battle of Bennington.

Bernie Sanders achieved a record margin of victory over Hillary Clinton tonight; twenty-one points.

Trump took the Republican side by a wider margin, with Kasich staying alive with a distant second. Cruz, Rubio and Bush are more or less tied for third. Chris ("I worked the cones") Christie is headed back to Jersey to reconsider his options. Might I make a suggestion, Governor? Just sit down and shut up.

The Calm Before the Flood

As of this moment, the people of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire have voted (all nine of them.)
The tally? Sanders 4, Clinton 0 and on the Republican side: Kasich 3, Trump 2.

This time tomorrow we'll know the rest, but it is a nice start.

Quote(s) of the Post

"When we show a friend a city one has already visited, we feel the same pride as when we point out a woman whose lover we have been."
  Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo,novel

I believe that is a singularly French sentiment, and it rings true. The next one is just beautiful:

"...The house, awakened from its long sleep, like the sleeping beauty of the wood, lived, sang, and bloomed like the houses we have long cherished, and in which, when we are forced to leave them, we leave part of our souls."
  Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, novel

O Iowa!

  As I write this, the Democratic primary is still too close too call. Clinton has a three or four point lead over Sanders, with about 96% of the precincts reporting. However it plays out, the tie goes to the underdog, so I'm calling it for Bernie. (Full disclosure: I'm volunteering for the Sanders campaign.) (Fuller disclosure: I'm still right about the tie.)
  Governor Martin O'Malley has dropped out tonight. He ran a good campaign and played an important part in shaping the conversation. I know we haven't seen the last of him.

  On the Republican side, Ted (Canadian Bacon) Cruz won. Donald Fucking Trump is a loser. (I hope to be saying that often between now and November.)
  Mike (The Huckster) Huckabee dropped out tonight. I suggest he eat some cinnamon and get some sleep.