retrurn from the hospital

On Dec. 19, 2016, I checked into the local hospital sporting flu and heart problems and just today was released from a  durance vile. There were hallucinations that included zillions of pencil-prick ants; there were colors that bore in on eachoher like yellow and white water colors .... there was sfuff and uncomfortable beds passing for ever-so- expedient ... ... everyone seemed to want to make me feel better. I missed the ones I actually believed

Back home now. Tired, frazzled.. My wife and sons bore the brunt.  Dying didn't much matter ... or it didn't seem to. And night of sane sleep wouldn't hurt.

"Jingle Bells" in Mongolia

A bout of physical bumpiness saw Christmas come and go, though this perky jingle, passed along in email, added a little spice:

sick day & Rachel Maddow

A sick day and simultaneously one on which Rachel Maddow's straight and searing analysis was passed along ... nothing serious, of course, just the sale of the United States to Exxon. I have to admit it -- the woman leaves me gasping as she connects to dots no one else seems willing to connect.

schlocky column for the month

Here are some of the columns I did not write in 2016 – a kind of stocking-stuffer of ideas I was too research-averse to attack and parse and issue an opinion about.

-- Not long ago, as is her occasional wont, Janet sent along the following pithy observation penned by her late husband, science writer Isaac Asimov:
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always had been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’ ”
Strange how cozy and confirmed the mind can feel when hearing what democracy is not and yet how stymied (and loud) it can become when asked to nail down what it is.

-- Walk into any supermarket and check out the tomatoes. The uniform redness and roundness are a sight to behold. But are these things tomatoes or are they really some better-living-through chemistry, a thick-skinned, largely juiceless fruit that can be harvested by a machine that will reduce the need for manual labor?
As a kid, I can remember walking through tomato patches, plucking an irregularly-shaped-and-colored fruit off the vine, taking a bite and having the juice dribble down my chin.

-- Today’s tomatoes remind me a bit of the 2-by-4s sold in lumber yards but don’t measure 2-by-4 ... or the Defense Department that lost the courage to label itself the Department of War ... or the life-insurance policy that rests squarely on the ability to drop dead.

-- Funeral homes and doctors both seem to be in businesses that confer upon them the right to call me by my first name. How did this happen?
My mother always taught me that until otherwise instructed, Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms. and whatever other polite prefix is popular these days was a way to depict respect and a warranted distance. And that includes “doctor.”

-- On the internet, there is an “algorithm” (code) that allows the site to remember my interests in the past and serve up more of the same. This coding magic is granted a round of applause.
But when I head to one of a number of news sites that I read daily, I most emphatically do not want more of the same or even something that is similar. That’s not the nature of news.
More important, this algorithmic magic means that whatever anyone’s interest might be, they are in some measure confined to their interest bubble and that as time passes, that bubble gets smaller and smaller.
Put politely, individuals become “intellectually challenged.” Put directly, more of the same is likely to make people “stupid.”

-- “Multi-tasking” is a word used by those who wish the drones of any given business will produce more in the same amount of time. It’s a money-maker to the extent that it is real.
The problem is that it is not real and anyone who says it is is either greedy or lying or possibly both. Human beings do one thing at a time and a study in Texas showed that shifting back and forth from one topic to the next produced less efficient results and, into the bargain, tended to depress the person attempting it.
Those who say, “We need someone capable of multi-tasking” are simply saying they want more money and less work for themselves.

-- Several weeks ago, a 300-plus-pound mechanical engineer who had played Santa over the better part of a decade was called to a Tennessee hospital where a 5-year-old boy was dying and wanted to see Santa.
There was no time for Eric Schmitt-Matzen to don more than his Santa suspenders and adjust his own, very real, girth When he got to the hospital, Schmitt-Matzen, 60, said he asked family members to remain outside the room if they were going to break down in tears. “The little guys and girls have a hard time fathoming the whole concept of death, but they know Christmas and they know they have a lot of fun,” he said.
“When I walked in, he was laying there, so weak it looked like he was ready to fall asleep,’’ Schmitt-Matzen told the Knoxville News Sentinel. “I sat down on his bed and asked, ‘Say, what’s this I hear about you’re gonna miss Christmas? There’s no way you can miss Christmas. Why, you’re my No. 1 elf.’ ”
After Schmitt-Matzen assured him that he was passing on to a better place, the boy gave Santa a hug and asked a final question: “Santa, can you help me?”
“I wrapped my arms around him,” Schmitt-Matzen recalled. “Before I could say anything, he died right there. I let him stay, just kept hugging and holding on to him.”

And that’s what I want for Christmas – the courage and kindness and generosity that the Schmitt-Matzens of this world can provide.


Adam Fisher, of Northampton, is a regular contributor. He can be reached at genkakukigen@aol.com.

a psychiatric take on Donald Trump

Passed along in email:

Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill?

3 Professors Of Psychiatry

Ask President Obama To Conduct

‘A Full Medical And Neuropsychiatric Evaluation’

Guardian photo competition

Ben Moore, winner [The Guardian]

The gorgeous little children of the Hamar tribe in southern Ethiopia were only too happy to make this circle of feet for me, laughing their heads off all the time. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: Maybe a set-up shot, but many are. The most poignant memories of a trip often aren’t the grand vistas or the glorious sunrises and sunsets, but the smallest details. These children sitting in a circle and this lovely composition of just their toes, feet and legs, says so much. You decide what. 

 

 

I like this, but I'm not sure why or even that I think it is especially a "winner." Perhaps it is somehow peaceful. I honestly don't know.

"Alice's Restaurant" ... again

Others may find it dated and out of synch, but I ran into it again today and found that I enjoyed the smiles and determination of another era:

water, water everywhere...

Yesterday, I whipped out a newspaper column that focused on the columns I had not written in 2016. It was the best I could manage. Where have all the ideas -- and more important the succulence with which I could imbue them -- gone? I feel like one of those p.r. pix for global warming ... the polar bear standing on a great slab of broken-away ice. Nothing but water in all directions. I can't seem to find the caring and the oomph.

Not that I begrudge anyone else their cares. It's just that I can't seem to find them any more. The importance, the meaning, the associations and hook-ups -- all of it has a slightly vapid feel: Do I really need to follow that train of thought? Why? Isn't the richness rich enough without investing it with richness?

There was a time when I would lullaby myself to sleep with one thought-weaving or another -- some spiritual or sociological skein perhaps -- but now I drop of the cliff without any humming necessary. Only god can pray to god, so it seems sensible/inescapable just to let the prayers be spoken without my lookit-me additions.

It's kind of strange and vaguely lonely, but it seems to be the way of things.

Once, when I was acting as an intermediary between a Smith College student and my mother whom the student wished to interview about one of my mother's novels, I asked my mother how she felt about the interview. My mother was hard of hearing and it was a long time since she had written and won an Edgar for "The Horizontal Man," a book many considered a roman à clef about the college. When I asked my mother about the interview, I thought she might play the age card as she declined. Instead, she took another tack: "I can't really remember what it was about," she said simply. She knew she had written it. She knew it enjoyed a small patch of literary sunlight. But ... well ... what was the fuss about?... I can't quite remember.

A column should bear some stamp of "importance" or "meaning" or "relevance," right? But now there is more water and less ice. An odd kettle of fish.

ambrosia

At 8:30, the first sip of morning coffee
Is as good as it is at 4:30.
But at 4:30,
It's better.

Obama takes some Middle East responsibility

I suppose there are those who view U.S. President Barack Obama as another spin-doctor -- a wheedler and a conniver looking to pass the blame buck and shelter from the fallout of an anguished world. And no doubt there's an element of truth to the critique. Like speaking of a rich man, "No rich man ever got that way by being nice."

But I honestly cannot think of another (wo)man in power who might even skirt the responsibility for the slaughter and sorrow in Syria ... and most notably of late, Aleppo. If it's a lie, I think it is a better lie than most, not that those who are suffering give much of a rat-fuck.

pig gives a raspberry

the serious and the silly

Just a couple of sillies in a world full of solemnities:

-- Police in Hudson, N.Y., got whip-sawed into breaking into a car where an overly-realistic elderly woman had apparently frozen to death in the latest temperature tumbles. The woman turned out to be a dummy/mannequin. The owner was pissed. The police issued a statement reading, "Just to clear the record, all citizens of Hudson should be put on notice that if you park your locked vehicle on the street on a sub-zero night with a life-size realistic mannequin seated in it... we will break your window."

-- Hundreds of Australians have gathered to roll on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra, in protest against plans to build a security fence there.

Under new anti-terror measures, a 2.6-metre barrier could soon block public access to the much-loved grassy space.
The mass tumble took place on Saturday morning, after news of the event spread on Facebook....
Mr Broad said that while he has not indulged in a hill roll since he was a child, Australia's leaders should consider taking part.
"I reckon at the end of the year that'd be a good look; all the pollies [politicians] finish the parliament with a good roll down the grass and tell people that parliament ultimately is about a bit of fun," he said.

God bless the Aussies!

the dream/the nightmare

Fashion photos ... The Guardian

Irving Penn, Mascara Wars, New York, 2001

‘Companies spend millions of dollars developing breakthrough technology, and we were reporting on the latest “mascara war” between two of the giants,’ Posnick recalls. ‘The model’s eyes were closed for two hours while Penn photographed every possible variation... He had a picture that wasn’t especially exciting or memorable, but there was nothing that he hadn’t already tried... Our model opened her eyes, and I saw that they were completely bloodshot. Penn said, “Don’t move.” He did just two or three more exposures. Here was the shock that was missing’

Photograph: Irving Penn/Condé Nast

Steven Klein – Horse Pool Windsor, Connecticut, June 2005

Another frequent collaborator is Steven Klein, the photographer best known for his work with Madonna and Lady Gaga

Photograph: Steven Klein

selfishness

Of all the human burdens, selfishness is the most irksome.

And if you don't believe this, then please, choose another and use that.

elector to withhold vote for Trump

This is old, but I missed it and thought it was worth the price of admission since listening to author Christopher Suprun speak on the car radio earlier today: He sounded like someone who cared about the country he and I share:

DALLAS — I am a Republican presidential elector, one of the 538 people asked to choose officially the president of the United States. Since the election, people have asked me to change my vote based on policy disagreements with Donald J. Trump. In some cases, they cite the popular vote difference. I do not think presidents-elect should be disqualified for policy disagreements. I do not think they should be disqualified because they won the Electoral College instead of the popular vote. However, now I am asked to cast a vote on Dec. 19 for someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office.

Is it a useless gesture? I would say not. Trump will be president, I suspect, but the country will be left begging as a result.

another day

A snippy-snappy day in which newscasters, who no longer have budgets that would allow for news casting, are predicting increasing cold, petty crime and bureaucratic plans for which the money has yet to be ponied up.

How I wish someone would take these broadcasters into some back room and lay a belt against their back sides:  There is no knowing the future and talking about it as if it could be known is an abdication of responsibility. How I wish someone would simply draw the line and say, "yes, human beings are important and their doings deserve investigation that is factual and thoughtful. It will never be complete, but that incompleteness is an aspect for which decent newscasters assume responsibility."

"I choose THIS story ... not THAT one. I may be wrong. Being wrong is not so bad." Running away into a future that cannot be known is chickenshit.

But of course they are well-dressed, talk loud, have unimaginative vocabularies, and display flashy tits.

It's the money, honey.

Bashar al Assad, U.S. ally

Though I haven't got the energy or brains to parse it, my sense is that the United States has sold out to its former arch-villain, Syrian president Bashar al Assad and has decided to stand aside as so-called rebels and civilians are massacred in Aleppo, Syria's second largest city. The slaughter may rank historically with the 1994 genocide once witnessed in Rwanda. Everyone seems to look back in anguish at that slaughter, but the anguish is for the dead and not, as in Aleppo, for those still, somehow, living.

Does the U.S. hope to escape a charge of complicity? Of course it does. But can it? I seriously doubt it. And having Bashar al Assad as an ally is ... unspeakable. Out-of-hand executions, gas attacks, no mercy.

Rebels groups have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran. [Reuters]

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told the security council that the Syrian government, along with Russia and Iran, bore responsibility for the deaths of civilians in Aleppo. She accused the three states of putting a “noose” around civilians in the city, asking: “Are you incapable of shame? … Is there no execution of a child that gets under your skin? Is there literally nothing that shames you?” [The Guardian]

 Of course knicker-twisting does little or nothing. And a lack of principles deflates still further a nation awaiting the inauguration od Donald Trump as president.

Before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, there were numerous assessments/projections that suggested that an end-game scenario needed to be formulated if the Middle Eastern arena were not to fall prey to sectarian in-fighting. Well, in Iraq and elsewhere, there still is no end-game scenario and the infighting, as promised, flourishes.

I can't pretend to know the answer or even AN answer. But I do have a strong sense that with friends like Bashar al Assad -- and possibly Donald Trump -- who needs enemies?

buying and selling the U.S.A.

NEW YORK (AP) -- President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday he has picked ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state, calling him "among the most accomplished business leaders and international deal makers in the world."

"Rex Tillerson's career is the embodiment of the American dream. Through hard work, dedication and smart deal making, Rex rose through the ranks to become CEO of ExxonMobil, one of the world's largest and most respected companies," the billionaire real estate mogul said in a pre-dawn news release from Trump Tower in New York.

Tillerson "knows how to manage a global enterprise, which is crucial to running a successful State Department," Trump said. In a tweet, Trump added that Tillerson "has vast experience at dealing successfully with all types of foreign governments."

As far as I can see, there is not a word in the story about Tillerson's diplomatic capacities except to the extent that dollars-and-cents deal-making and diplomacy amount to the same thing. The mercantile cheesiness of Trump's would-be Camelot makes me wonder -- is there anything about this country that Trump loves? As far as I can see, it's "the price of everything and the value of nothing" that motivates him and many of his down-on-their-luck supporters probably agree: Fuck principle -- I'd like a little filet mignon myself!

Can anyone imagine Tillerson or his ilk making America "great again" for those most in need of a job or a bit of security? What principle(s) do men like Trump and Tillerson adhere to? Trickle-down economics? Trickle-up wealth? The little guy is going to get fucked -- again -- if I had to guess. Trump will find someone else to blame.

It feels pretty slimy. The 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings echo faintly in my mind: "Have you no decency, sir?"

Santa despite the clothes

A US man who dresses up as Santa Claus fulfilled a dying boy's Christmas wish by visiting him at his bedside, before the youngster passed away in his arms.

Eric Schmitt-Matzen rushed to a local in Tennessee hospital after receiving a call about a terminally ill five-year-old boy who wanted to see Santa Claus.
The 60-year-old impersonator said he gave the child a present and a big hug before holding him as he died.[BBC]

snow day

First demonstrable snow of the season -- five or six inches -- and I wonder if elephants wish they could walk as silently as snow flakes. I have always wanted to be able to walk like an elephant, so perhaps the thought is not that weird.

The boys are out arguing with the snowblower -- a crafty and luxurious machine that is a bit logy after a season out of commission. So far, the machine seems to be getting the better of the argument.

The air is raw and, in writing this entry, I am sidestepping a column I would like to write, but for the moment seems too ephemeral to get my hands on. The impelling line is "some things are more important than equality. Love and friendship are two of them." I have the incident in mind -- the one on which I would like to make the case -- but its impact in my gut is hard to transfer to the page. So I waffle between the impact within and the mediocrity of delivery it might induce or ... shall I just pick an easier topic?

If I whine long enough, maybe the Column Fairy will descend and wave her twinkling wand.

the bullshit of "multi-tasking"

How many job applicants are encouraged to be good multi-taskers by the companies hoping to hire them? Are those companies hiring the dummies at the expense of good employees and then bemoaning the results? As Forrest Gump's mama observed, "Stupid is as stupid does." It's probably important to pinpoint who, precisely, is stupid in this equation.

Multitasking “produces shallower thinking, reduces creativity, increases errors and lowers our ability to block irrelevant information,” says Dr Sandra Bond Chapman, founder and chief director, Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas, via email. Because the brain was not built to multitask, over time it can lead to heightened levels of stress and depression and lower overall intellectual capacity, she says.
Yet despite mounting evidence that multitasking isn’t effective, old attitudes combined with new technology make juggling prevalent in most work places. [BBC]

how would Stoicism fare today?

Stoicism is a school of philosophy which was founded in Athens in the early 3rd century and then progressed to Rome, where it became a pragmatic way of addressing life’s problems. The central message is, we don’t control what happens to us; we control how we respond.
The Stoics were really writing and thinking about one thing: how to live. The questions they asked were not arcane or academic but practical and real. “What do I do about my anger?” “What do I do if someone insults me?” “I’m afraid to die; why is that?” “How can I deal with the difficult situations I face?” “How can I deal with the success or power I hold?” [The Guardian]

a pardon for Edward Snowden?

Edward Snowden has been the subject of several high-profile appeals this year, calling on Barack Obama to pardon the National Security Agency whistleblower and allow him to return home to the US. Writers, intelligence experts, film stars and tech tycoons have all Now the most audacious display of support for Snowden is under way. Messages calling for his pardon are being beamed on to the outside wall of the Newseum, the Washington institution devoted to freedom of speech and the press that stands less than two miles from the White House.

jailing the least dangerous

A quarter of the US prison population, about 364,000 inmates, could have been spared imprisonment without meaningfully threatening public safety or increasing crime, according to a new study.

Analyzing offender data on roughly 1.5 million US prisoners, researchers from the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that for one in four, drug treatment, community service, probation or a fine would have been a more effective sentence than incarceration....

The Brennan Center calculates that this could equal a cost saving of $20bn a year, greater than the combined budgets of the US departments of commerce and labor.

"cult of personality"

Swimming up from the eddies and depths of sleep, it occurred to me that if there were a tailor-made descriptive for U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, it would be "cult of personality." In my mind, it was bang-on for a short-and-sweet, let's-not-waste-our-breath-on-this-topic summing up.

It was bang-on and yet a closer examination of the phrase exuded fragility and blurred edges. What was the difference between charismatic leadership and self-anointing raiment?

The terms "cult of personality" and "personality cult" were further popularized by Nikita Khrushchev's initially secret speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences given on the final day of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, February 25, 1956, which criticized the lionization of Josef Stalin.... -- Wikipedia

Of course the meaning, if not the words, spread further back into history. Perhaps every (wo)man is his or her own cult of personality, whether in subtle or in gross, so bad-mouthing the one and leaving the other unscathed reflects more on the source and less on the object of that source's observations.

When "cult of personality" is positive, everyone applauds. Viewed negatively, people get shot or hanged. And still, for all the parsing and poking, "cult of personality" strikes me as fitting Donald Trump right down to his bourgeois puttees.

He loves nothing and he'll sell it to you all day long.

I had a Zen teacher like that once.

cell-phone revenge fantasy

Passed along in email:

Trump du jour

Passed along in email:

postmortem art

"A new exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum recalls a time when portraits were seen as a way of remembering and celebrating life outside of mere memory."

city of love, city of rats

Ah, la citéde l'amourappears to have suffered a couple of setbacks  

1.'When Parisians are literally tripping over rats on the sidewalk, it is clear that the City of Light has a problem." and 

2. "With more and more asthmatic children needing hospital treatment in Paris amid an exceptional bout of pollution, France's government is putting medics on alert and warning residents to limit outdoor activity over the weekend."

shut up

A little silence never hurt anyone and so, as an early Christmas present, it might be nice to take a moment and just shut up. I don't mean some new and improved and goopy activity: I mean personally, in a time when no one is looking ... when, in fact, even you aren't looking and chewing and digesting and protesting and extolling and relaxing and improving. Just shut up. Literally. For a literal minute. Shut ... up.

I don't know about you, but for me, these are times that feel like a case of national rug burn. Volume has replaced veracity and, even when I am not discussing or dismissing the arguments of others, still there is a sense of discomfort in my mind. Common decency dwindles as the president-elect issues some new round-house edict that lacks supporting evidence. The delight of one persuasion is dependent on the discomfort of another. The ills are real enough, but the raucous anger seems to find no rest or reprieve.

My friend Dave sent me an email: "I don’t get it.  The state of being angry is almost considered a badge of honor by many – an emotion one should aspire to. But when I was growing up, I was taught that anger (though we all experience it times) is a negative emotion and that angry people were not to be admired or emulated."

Everything is for sale. Honor goes begging. Is this my country? Is it yours? Discussions that begin as sharing and caring and all the other nice words shudder and slump into something akin to my-sorrow-is-more-sorrowful-than-yours. Or, alternatively, my-joy-is-more-joyful-than-yours. Words like "Marxist" or "socialist" are hurled, yet there is little evidence that anyone might be willing to investigate their actual meanings. And the volume increases, even when there is no one there to listen. Even when there is no one listening, still I am forced to listen to myself.  

In general, I dislike relying on the words of others as a means of expressing my opinion. But today, I will borrow the words of Max Ehrmann's 1927 "Desiderata," which encourage a politer form of my sense that shutting up and letting the silence have its say is a good idea. Anything -- anything at all -- can happen in the silence.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

One minute.

Shut up.

What's that like?