patriotism

Let me get this straight:
My country is run on moral cowardice
And you expect me to be a patriot.
Is that it?

greatest change in 20th century

If asked, I imagine those who waxed in the 20th century might point to the internet as the single biggest game-changer. Culture, relationships, information -- the internet shifted the tectonics of life.

My mother, by contrast, once observed that the single biggest change in the 20th century was "the loss of servants."

The same or different, I'm not sure.

As Donald Trump works his way back to a society with servants, he confronts the internet with its over-the-top references to "democracy" and "transparency" and "patriotism" and "empathy" and "freedom."

I dunno ... it just crossed my mind. Servitude is so much easier, but it can make people crabby.

writing

Writing requires friction -- point A in tandem with or juxtaposed to point B. But where the sense of friction is lost, so the desire/drive to write also seems to dwindle.

Every morning, of late, I continue to scan the news wires -- a very old habit. But the sense of friction seems somehow to have dwindled and where once any topic could stir my verbal somersaults, now the excitement or interest appears to have run out of helium.

There is the impeachment hoo-rah about Donald Trump. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in hot water as he tries to lead Britain away from its participation in the European Union. And who knows what sigh of relief that other oligarch, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is breathing a sigh of relief that the world is focused on those troubled politicians and not on the fact that he is, or seriously might be, in judicial hot water. And then there is health care, wealth disparity, environment ... and the list rolls on, each item positing its mirror image and each more complex than my latter-day 'mind' can or will care about.

There was a time when I could write about anything. Now, nothing much seems worth writing about. It's age, I suppose, but it's also odd. Nowadays, I flow back to some earlier time ... and fly up my own reminiscing asshole ... and ... as it seems ... disappear.

"Form follows function" -- a useful observation that floats like a water drop in a space capsule. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Another one.  How does a threshing machine work? I had to look that one up. A technician is promised today ... someone who will straighten out the phone system which is on the fritz.

My wife and I drove into the hills yesterday. Leaves are changing, but I've forgotten the order ... is it green to yellow to red to brown or green to yellow to brown to red ... anyway, fall is on the way. Or, as CBS newsman Walter Cronkite once observed, "News isn't about how many cats did not get up on the garage roof."

Flying up my own reminiscing asshole ... smooth as dish soap. In the sixth, seventh and eighth grade, I carried a sheath knife with at least an eight-inch blade. No one thought anything of it -- they carried similar hardware ... it was mainly for cutting the string around bales of hay that needed to be shaken out for the horses or cows. Nowadays, such a tool would probably induce some good and kindly person to shit an 'altruistic' brick.

Trump helps to drain the swamp

In the midst of the impeachment tsunami that reared its roaring head last week in the U.S. House of Representatives, there are innumerable blind alleys, roads that lead to other roads ... and on and on it goes. Donald Trump may have been elected to "drain the (Washington legislative) swamp, but in the meantime, it seems, he has created his own.

And one of the indicators can be seen along the newswires.

Two weeks ago, every other story might have had Trump in the headline and left working Americans sucking hind tit. Now the headlines are as freighted by impeachment with the same frequency that Trump once ruled the waves. Every other story is an impeachment story .... Trump is not the focal point with his brazen lies: instead, the impeachment kerfuffle dominates the headlines and every other story is some aspect of that impeachment inquiry.

Impeachment may be wrong for all sorts of reasons, but getting Trump out of the headlines isn't one of them. What a relief to find other issues (Brexit, climate change, drug addiction, white supremacy, elections in the Middle East) floating to the surface.

What a relief not so see a tin-pan stand in for iron-pot issues. You know Trump is unlikely the drain the swamp of his own making, but lo-and-behold.....

impeachment piffle

Suddenly, there is no turning on the news without some new bit of information about the impeachment hearings, hopes, trajectories against U.S. President Donald Trump. Woo-hoo ... there is something satisfying about seeing the screw turn, if that's what it's doing. Trump is suddenly playing defense ... but ...

I think I would maintain that none of it matters. Trump, like George (the Shrub) Bush, has already served the purpose for which he was intended. The rest is eyewash. Trump's purpose was to reduce taxes on the wealthy. And he did it. And the Democrats helped. And the rest of us are fucked anew... or anyway that's my fake-news understanding.

Perhaps someone will correct this if it is too egregiously mistaken.

shards andf snippets

Shards and snippets....

It's not so much, "I think, therefore I am" I suspect, but rather, "I want, therefore I am."

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

Over the past half-century, North America has lost more than a quarter of its entire bird population, or around 3 billion birds.
That's according to a new estimate published in the journal Science by researchers who brought together a variety of information that has been collected on 529 bird species since 1970.

Fewer birds, less song? Less song, less music? Less music, less magic?

The matter of music and magic is a matter of death minus the I'm-so-scared of it. To be swooned by music is a kind of death ... to give up everything for this delicious moment. A wowsers orgasm, perhaps.

Strange how giving things away can be so threatening on the one hand and so yearned-for in the same instant. Music is so comfortable that it is worth the surrender of positively everything. I thought of this when listening to portions of a latter-day TV series on country music by documentarian Ken Burns: The history is mildly interesting; the magic, where it is allowed to rise, envelopes me ... take me, I'm yours; take me, I'm nothing; really it's quite pleasant.

Can there be less music, less magic? I doubt it.

Bless the birds.
********************

The start gun for impeachment hearings sounded yesterday. A little late in the day, given President Donald Trump's moral cowardice and outright lying, but better late than never. It was Trump, I believe, who foresaw his own downfall in impeachment hearings.

If true, then "from his mouth to God's ear." Because the Senate will never confirm such hearings, the House action is largely symbolic, but anything that turns up the fire on this man is probably a good thing.

Shards and snippets.

price per prayer

All things have a price – and if not, economists will find one. Researchers have calculated the going rate for thoughts and prayers offered in hard times.

This article left me utterly -- and I mean utterly -- flummoxed. What did it mean? What was its point? Why should I care? At what juncture could I find purchase and loll along in the lull of argument? Who thought up the thesis and then, by God, turned it into a "study?"  I desperately want to understand, but just plain don't.

Yes, OK ... I'm an old fart with dwindling capacities but, but, but .... what the fuck is going on?

Is there a cheat sheet that goes with this essay -- something to guide and support me? I'm lost, lost, lost.

Would it help if I asked for prayers... or eschewed them ... or something?

At least "Alice's Restaurant" makes some sense ....

I mean....
I mean .....

 

beware the feral pigs!

Beware the feral pigs: They fuck like bunnies and are invading the U.S. from the north! They may or may not be a walking billboard for the large-capacity clips that some gun owners are keen to keep in their arsenals.

Feral pigs are widely known as “rototillers.” They root around for their food and spend much of their time wallowing in landscapes from farms and open fields to forests and riparian areas, leaving the terrains unrecognizable. Aside from the damages left behind, they are elusive in nature and often become nocturnal when “hunted or pressured by human activity,” said Ryan Brook, a researcher and assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
The pigs are also highly prolific.
Steuber said females birth around three litters every two years or so, and litters have been known to contain more than a dozen piglets. When grown, mature adults weigh on average between 120 and 250 pounds, but larger ones have tipped the scales at 400 pounds.
“They can decimate the range land by tearing up everything,” said Tahnee Szymanski, an assistant veterinarian with the Montana Department of Livestock.

footnote

Just get it straight.

There is magic everywhere.

Stop pretending it exists.

Or doesn't.

no hand-holders for this woman

A 77-year-old British woman has become the oldest person to sail around the world alone, non-stop, and unassisted.
Jeanne Socrates, from Lymington, Hampshire, completed her 320-day voyage in Victoria, Canada. She was accompanied by a flotilla of boats during the final moments of the journey, while hundreds of people cheered her on from the harbour.
The Royal Victoria Yacht Club congratulated Socrates on Saturday for completing her solo circumnavigation unassisted and setting the record for being the oldest person to do so.

ditch the climate dithering

Passed along in email:

What If We Stopped Pretending?

The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.

By Jonathan Franzen

September 8, 2019

Finally, overwhelming numbers of human beings, including millions of government-hating Americans, need to accept high taxes and severe curtailment of their familiar life styles without revolting. They must accept the reality of climate change and have faith in the extreme measures taken to combat it. They can’t dismiss news they dislike as fake. They have to set aside nationalism and class and racial resentments. They have to make sacrifices for distant threatened nations and distant future generations. They have to be permanently terrified by hotter summers and more frequent natural disasters, rather than just getting used to them. Every day, instead of thinking about breakfast, they have to think about death.

undignosed-illness list

At least 25 dogs in Norway have fallen victim to the undiagnosed sickness, which causes severe vomiting and acute diarrhoea. Photograph: ROMAOSLO/Getty Images/iStockphoto

 

 

 

Pods of whales, river fish by the score, chickens, diplomats in Cuba, [were there also eels in there somewhere], dogs in Norway ... the list of those struck by largely-undiagnosed illnesses seems to grow longer. Or maybe I'm just making it up.

Jeffrey Epstein's little black book

I have to admit to a half-assed and ill-informed nosiness about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire who procured (with assistance) underage women for his sexual gratification. He was also, it appears, a very canny 'philanthropist.' Epstein's death in a New York jail cell was ruled a suicide (Aug. 11, 2019) by hanging -- a ruling I find hard to believe, but who am I to say? (Sociopaths don't commit suicide is my line of thinking). Epstein's lawyers also doubt suicide.

Not, apparently, in question, is Epstein's coterie of enablers or sycophants or whatever. Names like Bill Gates, the New York Times, MIT, TED talks ... crop up as those whose names need to be redacted from any upcoming lawsuits. The names in Epstein's little black book ... I wonder who will win the battle over whether and what and whom will be protected and kept out of the limelight. The ship is sinking and a variety of rats or look-like-rats are scrambling for the gunwales.

Can I keep up with it all? Nope. But one thing's for sure -- the rich and famous, the wealthy beyond compare and the oh-so-squeaky clean .... duck and cover, guys.

The Epstein scandal at MIT shows the moral bankruptcy of techno-elites Evgeny Morozov

The MIT-Epstein debacle shows ‘the prostitution of intellectual activity’. Time for a radical agenda: close the Media Lab, disband Ted Talks and refuse tech billionaires money.

And you thought Netflix had the latest and most up-to-date political trash/scandal tale.

Jeffrey Epstein's little black book....

oceanic heat wave

The ocean off the western coast of North America is five degrees Fahrenheit hotter than usual after warming at an unusually rapid rate, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
It has been dubbed the “north-east Pacific marine heatwave of 2019”.
Marine heatwaves are defined as oceanic events in which the surface temperature of the water is warmer than 90% of past measurIf the abnormal patch does not dissipate soon, it could become as destructive as the so-called “blob” of warm water in the same area that, in 2014-2016, created toxic algae blooms, killed sea lions and endangered whales by forcing them to forage closer to shore.ements for at least five days in a row. The current heatwave is the second-largest since scientists started tracking the phenomenon in 1981, Noaa reported on Friday.

make "swoon" a transitive verb

Watching a TV program about the history of bluegrass music on TV last night, it became clear to me that I would prefer it if the word "swoon" were to become a transitive verb.

Back in the days of yore, when women cinched their waists to a breath-taking 15 inches, it was commonplace -- or anyway there was much-bruited anecdotal evidence -- for women to "swoon" at the first sign of any lapse in decorum.

[I know of no connections made between cinched waists and swooning, but since people are never quite as smart -- and never quite as stupid -- as you might imagine, I figure there was at least one bright penny who probably forged the links.]

Anyway, women swooned at the drop of an indecorous hat or so the stories are told. Swooning men were not similarly anointed or named: Swooning was not for those lesser lights.

But as I listened to the history of bluegrass music, I realized that some of its sharps and flats, banjos and mandolins, fiddles and guitars were utterly capable of swooning me. Music can swoon me and therefore deserved a role as a transitive verb -- not so much "I swoon" as "it swoons me." Beethoven's 9th does the same. And there are other segments of music that can creep in, curl up in a warming ball and ... just ... swoon me.

It's to die for....

Or is it just, "it kills me?"

Texas bans dick pics

Big news out of Texas this week: sending unsolicited penis pictures is now against the law, punishable by a $500 fine.
You might be wondering why Texas, of all places, is leading the charge when it comes to legislation like this. The Lone Star state, after all, is normally more focused on loosening restrictions on guns than tightening protections for women. Well, it’s largely because the female-focused dating app Bumble is based in Austin and lobbied local politicians to make it happen.
“If indecent exposure is a crime on the streets, then why is it not on your phone or computer?” Bumble’s founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, asked Texas lawmakers at a hearing earlier this year. “We have to call on you because as tech companies, we can only do so much.” Legislators agreed and the bill got bipartisan support.

My own utterly-unscientific, thoroughly-anecdotal take on the sexy bits of entertainment/movies goes something like this: Women's breasts are making inroads in what once was taboo ... even an occasional vaginal bomb zone shows up. Men's asses are making inroads, though not yet peckers. And everyone, from galumphy redneck to button-down candidate is cussing with more and more abandon: The cussing words are all there, but the music of cussing is almost entirely missing. Unless I am entirely wrong, pretty soon the old cross-your-legs prurience that straightens America's imagined backbone should be back in vogue.

Oh, heck!

pity the poor [male and horny] tarantula

Gaggles of tarantulas are emerging from their burrows across the western US on a quest to mate, hunting for love in prairies, foothills and a garage belonging to Kim Kardashian West.
From August to October, the eight-legged crawlers go on a walkabout for a once-in-a-lifetime foray to find a partner. The phenomenon is now occurring on a unusually large scale from northern California to Colorado and Texas, shining a light on the arachnids’ remarkable mating behavior, which can involve dancing and cannibalism.

kissing Trump's mideast 'peace deal' goodbye

Smoke and mirrors -- Mideast department:

Jason Greenblatt, the Trump administration’s special envoy for Middle East peace, tasked with working on the “ultimate deal” for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is to leave the post, it has been announced.
Greenblatt may stay in the role until the publication of the long-delayed plan, which is now due to come out some time after Israeli elections on 17 September. However, if those elections bring about the fall of Donald Trump’s close ally, Benjamin“Greenblatt’s leaving may have to do with the dim prospects of the so-called peace plan,” said Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of a book on US policy towards the Palestinians, Blind Spot. “What I do know is that it won’t make any difference to what is not really a plan – let’s call it a vision – because there is no chance of it going anywhere.” Netanyahu, the plan could be shelved indefinitely.

All of this might be funny if it were just some frat house getting organized on campus....look at the background credentials of those negotiating peace ... my grandmother's goat was Jewish and that surely qualifies me as a shaper of future peace in the Mideast.

nothing beats a good gizzard

Chickens, it may be observed, do not go to dentists. This is largely true because chickens have no teeth. Instead, like other fowl of the realm, chickens have gizzards -- a sack laced with small pebbles that do their mastication for them.

From this, were anyone a member of the Trump White House staff, it might rightly be inferred that the scientific community should be bending every effort to create a gizzard fit for human beings. Dentists of every stripe might be incommoded, but dentists generally have enough money already and the loss is to a minor minority of the general population in the United States.

This all may sound wacky and whimsical, but it strikes me as finding a good foundation for yet another diversionary tactic in an administration that specializes in sidestepping serious issues like climate change, gun control, racism and other policies in need or redemption.

Anyway -- be prepared! The day of the human gizzard is right around the corner and you read it here first. Nothing beats a good gizzard.

vote for Trump

Open a Twitter account?

VOTE FOR TRUMP
Moral cowardice is an unattractive presidential characteristic. Make America great ... for a change. Vote for Trump in 2020. Moral cowardice is his calling card.

Not sure what I'm getting at here. I guess that's the beauty of a blog -- you get to fly off the handle and hide behind the cowardice of a blog.

growing tooth enamel

Scientists say they have finally cracked the problem of repairing tooth enamel.
Though enamel is the hardest tissue in the body, it cannot self-repair. Now scientists have discovered a method by which its complex structure can be reproduced and the enamel essentially “grown” back.

drugs, the silly and searing

A "huge drugs bust" at Gatwick airport turned into an upside-down cake when 25 bags of white powder turned out to be vegan pizza fixings.

British Transport Police said: “‘Officers were called to Gatwick airport station at 1.34pm on 28 August after a suitcase was found containing 25 bags of powder.
“Following a number of inquiries and tests, it was determined these bags of powder were cake ingredients for a vegan bakery. They were soon reunited with the owner, who has promised officers and staff a slice of cake in return.”

In the silly, there is also the seriousness that has raised its head in the drug-related assassinations in Mexico ... just in time for Donald Trump. I wonder if Trump hired them or anyway might like to.

in pursuit of heaven

In pursuit of heaven, you have to raise a little hell.

As zippy as this observation may be, still, from where I sit, its invitation is outshone by the fact that, simply put, it's true. Honesty is not easy, as anyone pursuing heaven will tell you without thinking twice. Just about the time you think you've got things tucked under your belt, you notice your fly is open.

The Zen teacher Rinzai (Linji) once built a fire under the monks in his care with his needling encouragement, "Your whole problem is that you do not trust yourselves enough." How's that for a hell-raiser?

Heaven, like hell, is not for pussies.

Frances Crowe dies

Frances Crowe, a widget tornado of peace activism, died Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2019, here in Northampton. She was 100. In her wake, there is little or nothing anyone can say except, perhaps,

AMEN!

robotic spiritual life

A friend passed along this Washington Post rewrite about the unveiling of a robotic Buddhist priest at a Japanese temple. Since fewer and fewer young adherents can be drummed up in this age of the internet, someone seemed to feel that Buddhism might get a shot in the arm or kick in the ass with an artificially-intelligent priest.

Religion may be on the wane among 'the best and the brightest,' but turning Buddhism into bite-sized morsels for those whose spiritual cravings may be thin at best has a wonderful idiocy to it from where I sit.

The one question robots cannot address is, of course, "if I'm so smart, how come I'm not happy?" Couple that with my own growing conviction that everyone has to pick his or her topic in which to flounder and drown and the recipe for something called "Buddhism" remains lustrous.

Sometimes I think the golden rule is not so much the middle way as it is the observation that everyone is an asshole in one way or another and sweeping up the leavings is what this life is about.  That's right -- it's not kool to be an asshole and yet each husbands and nourishes that very seed. I am an asshole.....  And your point is?

At about 35, I set my course: Is spiritual life bullshit or not? I didn't want to know so that I could convince others, I just wanted to know for my own purposes ... was spiritual life bullshit or not?

A lot of tears, a lot of effort, a lot of asshole-dom, a lot of solemnity and seriousness crossed my prow between the formulation of my query and this morning's sunshine. Damn near 50 years -- imagine that!

Looking back is not so bad.

I wouldn't wish my training on my worst enemy and I wouldn't trade it for all the tea in China. I picked Buddhism ... others pick wealth or power or love or marriage or ... or whatever other topic allows ready access to asshole-dom. As on a submarine, "Dive! Dive! Dive!"

No one else can answer my question any more that I can answer theirs.

Is spiritual life bullshit or not?

Sure.

Trump's misdirection

Call me a political novice, but....

U.S. President Donald Trump is currently out of the country, hobnobbing with other members of the so-called G-7 -- the well-to-do nations of the world -- in, where else? -- Biarritz, France. Putting him in France puts him out of the limelight at home. It's like a breath of fresh air. Let the movers and shakers move and shake someplace else.

Oh yes, Trump is still throwing chaff into the air. There is climate change, which the Trump presidency sees as a "niche" interest. There is a trade war with China. American farmers are getting hammered and good-paying coal jobs, once promised on the campaign trail, are no where in sight. May Trump stay in France -- life is so much lighter without him.

But all of Trump's chaff has a wonderful effect, don't you think? The one thing it does admirably is to paper over the tax cuts he won for businesses in the United States. It is classic misdirection. George Bush did much the same -- selling trickle-down economics that simply won't wash and then sending money to those who need it least.

He delivered. Is it any wonder that Republicans near and far see him as a chip off the old Republican block?

He delivered what they wanted. Why wouldn't they kiss his ass?

And he knows it.

Classic misdirection. Let the liberals and idealists whine ... we got ours.

spiritual transmission

Lightning strikes injured six people (none fatally) at a championship golfing tour in Atlanta, Ga., Saturday.

Multiple spectators were injured when severe weather hit the Tour Championship in Atlanta on Saturday.

Play at the East Lake Golf Club was stopped at 4:17 p.m. Saturday because of inclement weather, and with the tournament in a delay, players were cleared from the course, Golf.com reported. According to the Associated Press, fans were also told to find shelter from the storms.

Some fans chose a tree as their shelter point. Nature snickered and beat the shit out of the tree.

Even as kids, we knew not to take shelter under a tree in a severe storm: Lightning aims at the highest and most inviting point to get into the ground -- in this case, a tree. D'oh! As boys and girls sometimes do, so land and sky reach out for each other. Is information like that transmitted any more? It poses the question in my mind, "Who died and left you so stupid?"

Oh well, I guess everyone has a blind spot or two. But still ....

The Hindus, those granddaddies of spiritual smiles, have a tale that seems to amplify the question. Approximately, the story went like this:

Once upon a time a holy man was walking through the woods. He was deeply engrossed in his spiritual endeavors when, from afar, the voice of a mahout was heard screaming, "Get out of the way! Get out of the way! The elephant has gone mad!"

The holy man paid no attention: If everything was God, everything was fine and if everything was fine, he too would be fine, even in the face of maddened elephants whose mahouts had lost control of their beasts. The holy man continued his walk. In short order, the maddened elephant broke from the woods and charged the holy man. With an deep serenity, the holy man kept walking even as the mahout kept screaming, "Get out of the way!" Sure enough, the elephant ran right over the holy man.

Much later, the holy man woke up in a hospital with a friend perched on the edge of the bed.
"What happened?" asked the holy man.
"The elephant ran you down," his friend said.
"But, but ... if the elephant is God and I am God, why then did the elephant run me down?"
"You seem to have forgotten that the mahout is God as well," his friend explained.

I guess there are holes in the holy skein.

Following in the footprints of the Hindu tale, for a long time as a news person, I used to collect stories about pilgrimages (a lot of nuns seemed to be involved) in which acolytes were climbing a mountain when the storm arrived. There were few points of cover, and the pilgrims were the tallest thing on the mountain face... and ... guess what ... holiness is no barrier when it comes to ignorance.

I guess it is good to keep an ear open for the mahouts of this life.

Falun Gong boosts Donald Trump

“Over the last six months, the single largest organization that has spent money on Facebook ads promoting Donald Trump and Donald Trump’s re-election is as you might expect the Donald Trump re-election campaign. The organization that is second on that list, though, is this Falun Gong newspaper, the Epoch Times.

I like Rachel Maddow (I admit to thinking of her as a "brassy broad" from time to time) so I tried to listen to this report last night ... and make some sense of it ... and couldn't ... and played the age card. I'm too old for this shit.

Gawd!

last times

Like a scalpel lightly applied to epidermal flesh, intimations of mortality snuck into consciousness the other day as I hugged my older son goodbye while he prepared his return trip to Georgia: It might be, the tickles suggested, the last time I ever saw my older son and the first thought into my head was, "I'll miss him." I am now almost 80 and a prognosticator once told me I would die between 83 and 85. Assuming the prognosticator and actuarial tables are accurate, it is time for the 'last time's' to start kicking in.

It felt like a cut along the surface skin -- nothing horrific, just a cool nudge and some gap in my being opened up in that hug. A wet rag was dragged across some much-used blackboard and suddenly things were cleaned. Looking back, I do wish I could have done better, but as my wife observed doggedly, "Can you change any of it?" The answer is no, but that doesn't stop my wishing I had done somehow better by my family ... my wife, my children ... couldn't I have done more? Probably yes, maybe no ... there's nothing to be done now. Coulda-woulda-shoulda ... ah well, the scalpel tickles with precision.

What does an 80-year-old person do? I mean, like what? I watched a bit of a documentary about the gathering in Woodstock in 1969. Thousands of people, lots of music, and a sense of hope, I guess. I looked at the pictures of the crowds and realized that crowds did not appeal to me, then or now. I never was brought up in a family and the family of man struck me as dubious, then and now. The greater the number, the more suspect the conclusion ... and yet, how cozy. Individuals convince each other with abandon ... do they thereby convince themselves? Up to a point, I guess they do ... but then the scalpel tickles along the epidermis -- just the point of the scalpel.

Aloha!

police suicides

Perhaps it shows nothing of the sort, but based on a rising police-officer-suicide rate, I would guess that it takes real balls to be weak.

Think a moment: Every child is brought up within the shadow of his or her elders -- the parents and family who do what they can to steer a social course. The elders are "right" and children rely on that right-ness to steer them. They are young and powerless -- adults are, well, adults, and as such wield the power. They are right. And for the adults to be right requires that others be wrong. Policing is a young (wo)man's sport.

Somewhere or other are statistics, I believe, of World War II veterans who shot their rifles, but always aimed to miss. Something within balked at the idea of taking another life. The adults may be right, but there is a higher imperative ... and the people who are asked to sort all this out are barely adults themselves. Who doesn't long for someone, something, to be right -- something to rely on and count on and point to as a suitable reason for force against fellow human beings? Soldiers rely on their superiors. Children rely on adults. Citizens rely on the law. It's OK because someone else (some formula or law book) says it's OK even as someone within says it's not OK at all.

This is not just namby-pamby peace pablum. It is visceral. I long, in some deep way, to trust you and live with you in kinship. When there is no one else to assume the responsibility for what is right, suddenly it is I who must don the mantle, make the choice, pull the trigger. The fact that the man or woman next to me is doing the same thing -- trying to slow the enemy -- cannot ease my uncertainty and weakness. All the boo-yah! in the world cannot drown out the humanity.

It's no easy matter. Human beings can be exceptionally cruel and much in need of a tighter rein if society is to work moderately well. But to rely on the rules and regulations, however comforting, simply isn't comforting enough.

Right and wrong -- what 20-something can figure that one out? I don't know. It takes balls to plumb these depths, to feel the knots tightening in the gut, to pray to god because, goddammit, there is no other recourse. I cannot rely on my brothers and sisters, mom and dad, superiors and subordinates ... and I cannot rely on myself either. Only a fool would rely on others in order to lead a decent life ... and yet not to rely on those others is ... is ... is ... outer space.

PS.  "While suicide among police is a problem in many countries, France’s rate appears exceptionally high."